brother! There was the same pretty eagerness, the
same fire of kindliness and good will, hurrying both along to say they
knew not what. I could only thank her; and the very beauty and sweetness
of her struck all at once a sadness on my merriment; and I saw for a
moment that this was all a fleeting wreath of fog, as I said; yet all
the more for that strove to grasp it and hold it fast.

The sun went down behind the low hills, and the young lady cried that
she must hasten home; her aunt would be vexed at her for staying so
long. Yvon said, his faith, she might be vexed. If Mlle. de Ste. Valerie
might not go out with her brother, the head of her house and her natural
guardian, he knew not with whom she might go; and muttered under his
breath something I did not hear. So we went back to the chateau, and
still I was in the bright dream, shutting my eyes when it seemed like to
break away from me. The evening was bright and joyous, like the one
before. Again we three supped alone, and it seemed this was the custom,
the Countess Lalange (it was the name of the aunt) seldom leaving her
own salon, save to pass to her private apartments beyond it. We spent
an hour there,--in her salon, that is,--after supper, and I must bring
my violin, but not for dance music this time. I played all the sweetest
and softest things I knew; and now and then the young lady would clap
her hands, when I played one of my mother's songs, and say that her
nurse had sung it to her, and how did I learn it, in America? They were
the peasant songs, she said, the sweetest in the world. The lady aunt
listened patiently, but I think she had no music in her; only once she
asked if I had no sacred music; and when I played our psalm-tunes, she
thought them not the thing at all. But last of all, when it was time for
us to go away, I played lightly, and as well as I knew how to play, my
mother's favourite song, that was my own also; and at this, the young
girl's head drooped, and her eyes filled with tears. Her mother, too,
had sung it! How many other mothers, I ask myself sometimes, how many
hearts, sad and joyful, have answered to those notes, the sweetest, the
tenderest in the world?

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime;
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

CHAPTER IX.

THIS was one day of many, my dear. They came and went, and I thought
each one brighter than the last. When I had been a month at Chateau
Claire, I could hardly believe it more