n'etait plus question de la Petite Madelaine"
in Walter's letters, and in those of Adrienne she was never more alluded
to.

Mademoiselle de St Hilaire's mind was about this time engrossed by far
more important personages than her absent lover, or her youthful friend.
The present occupants, herself (no _new_ one truly), and a certain
Marquis d'Arval, who would probably have been her first choice, if he
had not been the selected of her parents. Not that she had by any means
decided on the rupture of her engagement with Walter (if indeed such a
contingency had ever formed the subject of her private musings);
neither, at any rate, would she have dissolved it, till his return
should compel her to a decision. For his letters were too agreeable, too
spiritual--too full of that sweet incense that never satiated her
vanity, to be voluntarily relinquished.

But in the mean time, the correspondence, piquant as it was--a charming
_passe-temps_!--could not be expected to engross her wholly. Many vacant
hours still hung upon her hands, wonderful to say, in spite of those
intellectual and elegant pursuits, the late discovery of which had so
enraptured the unsophisticated Walter. Who so proper as the Marquis
d'Arval, then on a visit at the Chateau,--her cousin too--besides being
the especial favourite of her parents--(dutiful Adrienne!)--to be the
confidential friend of la belle _delaissee_?--to be in fact the
substitute of the absent lover, in all those _petits soins_ that so
agreeably divert the ennui of a fine lady's life, and for which the most
sentimental correspondence can furnish no equivalent? In the article of
_petits soins_ indeed (the phrase is perfectly untranslatable), the
merits of d'Arval were decidedly superior to those of his English
competitor, whose English feelings and education certainly disqualified
him for evincing that peculiar tact and nicety of judgment in all
matters relating to female decoration and occupation, so essential in
the _cavalier servente_ of a French beauty. Though an excellent French
scholar, Walter never could compass the nomenclature of shades and
colours, so familiar and expressive to French tongues and tastes. He
blundered perpetually between "rose tendre," and "rose foncee;" and was
quite at fault if referred to as arbitrator between the respective
merits of "Boue de Paris," or "Crapeau mort d'amour."

Achilles, in his female weeds, was never more awkward at his task than
poor Walter, w