se, "Votre
sort, c'est moi. You remember what Louis XIV. said, 'L'Etat, c'est moi;'
now be pacified, I implore you--all will still be well," and she patted
my shoulder kindly, and kissed my forehead.

Her forbearance touched me; but the time came when all this was thrown
aside. It was the old fable again of the bee and the bee-moth. Having
failed in her first efforts, she was now very gradually gluing me
against the hive.

Evelyn, as I have said, had always been at the head of my father's house
and mine, and, by his will, was still to remain so until my marriage, or
majority--one, usually, in the eyes of the law, in most respects. So it
pained me infinitely less than it must have done had a different order
of things ever existed, to see her supreme at Monfort Hall, and to feel
that every thing emanated from her hand.

Of all the servants, old Morton alone seemed to feel the difference.
Mrs. Austin had always openly preferred Evelyn to me, and Mabel to
either--so that matters worked very well between those three. For,
though I do not think Evelyn loved Mabel, nor Mabel Evelyn, yet, with
this link between them of servile affection, they managed very well,
without much feeling on either side.

Mrs. Austin certainly spoiled Mabel, yet she only rendered her
self-indulged, not selfish--for this difference arises out of
temperament and disposition--and no mother could have been more tender
or vigilant of her comfort or welfare, than was this ancient and
attached nurse and servitor. I mention this here, for it reconciled me
later, somewhat, to an inevitable separation, that must have been else
thrice bitter. But the culmination approaches!

I was lying, one evening, on a deep velvet couch in the library, now
rarely used except for business purposes--for, again, fires and lights
sparkled, in their respective seasons, in the several receiving-rooms of
Monfort Hall, maintained by Evelyn's bounty--when, overpowered by the
influence of the hour, and the weariness of my own unprofitable
thoughts, and perhaps the dreary play of Racine's that I was reading, I
dropped asleep.

The sofa was placed in a deep embrasure, surrounded with sweeping
curtains, for the convenience of reading in a reclining posture, by the
light of the window, and quite shut away, by such means, from the
remainder of the room.

To-night, a chilly one in August, very unusual for that season, the
window was down, and the drawn curtains kept off the light of