se you, I cannot
obtain one smile for my reward."

"You have never found it difficult to give me pleasure, Lucie," returned
De Valette; "though unhappily I have been less fortunate in regard to
you."

"You are petulant to-day, Eustace," she said; "or you would not accuse
me so wrongfully; nay, you have been very, I must say it, very
disagreeable of late, and followed your own selfish amusements, leaving
me to wander about alone like a forsaken wood-nymph. Indeed, it is
neither kind nor gallant in you."

"And can you think I have consulted my own inclinations, in doing so?"
he asked, with vivacity. "Believe me, Lucie, my heart is ever with you,
and when I have been absent or neglectful, it was only from the fear of
obtruding those attentions, which I thought were no longer prized by
you."

"You have done me great injustice, by admitting such a thought,
Eustace," she replied; "and I appeal to your own conscience, if any
caprice or coldness on my part, has given you reason to imagine that my
feelings toward you have changed."

De Valette colored highly, and paused a moment, before he replied;

"I have no inclination to complain, Lucie, but you have long known my
sentiments too well to suppose I could view with indifference your
acknowledged preference for another, and it was natural to believe that
preference would diminish the interest which I once had the presumption
to hope you entertained for me."

"No circumstances can ever diminish that interest, Eustace," she
replied; "our long tried friendship, I trust, cannot be lightly severed,
nor the pleasant intercourse which has enlivened the solitude of this
wilderness be soon effaced from our remembrance: believe me," she added,
with emotion, "whatever fate awaits my future life, my heart will
always turn to you, with the grateful affection of a sister."

"A sister!" De Valette repeated, with a sigh; and the transient flush
faded from his cheek, while he stooped to caress the dog, which lay
sleeping at his feet.

A moment of embarrassing silence ensued, which Lucie broke, by asking De
Valette if he was returning to the fort, and proposing to accompany him.

"If the owner of this canoe was here to row us," she continued, "I
should like extremely to return in it, the water looks so cool and
inviting, and I am already weary."

"It would be madness to venture against the tide, in that frail vessel,"
replied De Valette; "and, indeed, Lucie, I think your present sit