p suddenly, then laughed aloud.

"Ah, mamma," said she, in a silver, clear, and soft voice, "how you
frightened me! I thought it was my tyrannical governess already returned
from her walk, and that she had surprised me with this book."

"Without doubt she forbade you to read it," said her mother, gravely,
stretching out her hand for the book, but Camilla drew it back suddenly.

"Yes, certainly, Madame Brunnen forbade me to read this book; but that
is no reason, mamma, why you should take it away from me. It is to be
hoped you will not play the stern tyrant against your poor Camilla."

"I wish to know what you are reading, Camilla."

"Well, then, Voltaire's 'Pucelle d' Orleans,' and I assure you, mamma, I
am extremely pleased with it."

"Madame Brunnen was right to forbid you to read this book, and I also
forbid it."

"And if I refuse to obey, mamma?"

"I will force you to obedience," cried her mother, sternly.

"Did any one succeed in forcing you to obey your mother?" said Camilla,
in a transport of rage. "Did your mother give her consent to your
elopement with the garden-boy? You chose your own path in life, and I
will choose mine. I will no longer bear to be treated as a child--I am
thirteen years old; you were not older when you had the affair with the
garden-boy, and were forced to confide yourself to my father. Why do you
wish in treat me as a little child, and keep me in leading-strings, when
I am a grown-up girl?"

"You are no grown-up girl, Camilla," cried her mother; "if you were, you
would not dare to speak to your mother as you have done: you would know
that it was unseemly, and that, above all other things, you should show
reverence and obedience to your mother. No, Camilla, God be thanked! you
are but a foolish child, and therefore I forgive you."

Louise drew near her daughter and tried to clasp her tenderly in her
arms, but Camilla struggled roughly against it.

"You shall not call me a child," said she, rudely. "I will no longer
bear it! it angers me! and if you repeat it, mamma, I will declare to
every one that I am sixteen years old!"

"And why will you say that, Camilla?"

Camilla looked up with a cunning smile.

"Why?" she repeated, "ah! you think I do not know why I must
always remain a child? It is because you wish to remain a young
woman--therefore you declare to all the world that I am but twelve years
old! But no one believes you, mamma, not one believes you. The world
laughs a