aid but slight attention to it, when by chance I remarked it
was in General d'Auvergne's handwriting. I opened it at once, and read
as follows:--

Bivouac, 11 o'clock.

My dear Burke,--No one ever set off for Paris without being
troubled with commissions for his country friends, and you
must not escape the ills of common humanity. Happily for
you, however, the debt is easily acquitted; I have neither
undiscovered shades of silk to be matched, nor impossible
bargains to be effected. I shall simply beg of you to
deliver with your own hand the enclosed letter to its
address at the Tuileries; adding, if you think fit, the
civil attentions of a visit.

We shall both, in all likelihood, be much hurried when we
meet to-morrow,--for I also have received orders to march,--
so that I take the present opportunity to enclose you a
check on Paris for a trifle in advance of your pay;
remembering too well, in my own aide-de-camp days, the
dilatory habits of the War Office with new captains.

Yours ever, dear Burke,

D'Auvergne, Lieut-General.

The letter of which he spoke had fallen on the table, where I now read
the address,--"A Madame la Comtesse d'Auvergne, nee Comtesse de Meudon,
dame d'honneur de S. M. l'Imperatrice." As I read these lines, I felt my
face grow burning hot, my cheeks flushed up, and I could scarcely have
been more excited were I actually in her presence to whom the letter
was destined. The poor general's kind note, his check for eight thousand
francs, lay there: I forgot them both, and sat still, spelling over
the letters of that name so woven in my destiny. I thought of the first
night I had ever heard it, when, a mere boy, I wept over her sorrows,
and grieved for her whose fate was so soon to throw its shadow over my
own. But in a moment all gave way before the one thought,--I should see
her again, speak to her and hear her voice. It is true, she was the wife
of another: but as Marie de Meudon, our destinies were as wide apart;
under no circumstances could she have been mine, nor did I ever dare
to hope it. My love to her--for it was such, ardent and passionate--was
more the devotion of some worshipper at a shrine than an affection that
sought return. The friendless soldier of fortune, poor, unknown, uncared
for,--how could he raise his thoughts to one for whose hand the noblest
and the bravest wer