fondly to adore!

And after trying in vain to find a rhyme for lover, he cried:

Oh! tell me--if one grief exceeds another
Is not this worst, to feel mere friendship moves
To cruel kindness the dear girl he loves?

Fred's mother surprised him one night while he was watering with his
tears the ink he was putting to so sorry a use. She had been aware
that he sat up late at night--his sleeplessness was not the insomnia of
genius--for she had seen the glare of light from his little lamp burning
later than the usual bedtime of the chateau, in one of the turret
chambers at Lizerolles.

In vain Fred denied that he was doing anything, in vain he tried to put
his papers out of sight; his mother was so persuasive that at last he
owned everything to her, and in addition to the comfort he derived from
his confession, he gained a certain satisfaction to his 'amour-propre',
for Madame d'Argy thought the verses beautiful. A mother's geese are
always swans. But it was only when she said, "I don't see why you should
not marry your Jacqueline--such a thing is not by any means impossible,"
and promised to do all in her power to insure his happiness, that Fred
felt how dearly he loved his mother. Oh, a thousand times more than he
had ever supposed he loved her! However, he had not yet done with the
agonies that lie in wait for lovers.

Madame de Monredon arrived one day at the Hotel de la Plage, accompanied
by her granddaughter, whom she had taken away from the convent before
the beginning of the holidays. Since she had fully arranged the marriage
with M. de Talbrun, it seemed important that Giselle should acquire
some liveliness, and recruit her health, before the fatal wedding-day
arrived. M. de Talbrun liked ladies to be always well and always lively,
and it was her duty to see that Giselle accommodated herself to his
taste; sea-bathing, life in the open air, and merry companions, were the
things she needed to make her a little less thin, to give her tone, and
to take some of her convent stiffness out of her. Besides, she could
have free intercourse with her intended husband, thanks to the greater
freedom of manners permitted at the sea-side. Such were the ideas of
Madame de Monredon.

Poor Giselle! In vain they dressed her in fine clothes, in vain they
talked to her and scolded her from morning till night, she continued to
be the little convent-bred schoolgirl she had always been; with downcast
eyes, pale