a triumphal entry into
St. Augustin would be herself and some other man--some man with whom
her acquaintance had been short, since she did not seem to feel in that
matter like Giselle. Some one she did not yet know? Was that sure? She
might know her future husband already, even now she might have made her
choice--Marcel d'Etaples, perhaps, who looked so well in uniform, or
that M. de Cymier, who led the cotillon so divinely. Yes! No doubt it
was he--the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of
jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea,
those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades
teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all
their jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and
at the next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his
entering for the first time some discreditable scenes of dissipation.

At Bermuda he received another letter, dated from Paris, where
Jacqueline had rejoined her parents, who had returned from Italy. She
sent him a commission. Would he buy her a riding-whip? Bermuda was
renowned for its horsewhips, and her father had decided that she must go
regularly to the riding-school. They seemed anxious now to give her, as
preliminary to her introduction into society, not only such pleasures as
horseback exercise, but intellectual enjoyment also. She had been taken
to the Institute to hear M. Legouve, and what was better still, in
December her stepmother would give a little party every fortnight and
would let her sit up till eleven o'clock. She was also to be taken to
make some calls. In short, she felt herself rising in importance, but
the first thing that had made her feel so was Fred's choice of her to be
his literary confidant. She was greatly obliged to him, and did not know
how she could better prove to him that she was worthy of so great an
honor than by telling him quite frankly just what she thought of his
verses. They were very, very pretty. He had talent--great talent. Only,
as in attending the classes of M. Regis she had acquired some little
knowledge of the laws of versification, she would like to warn him
against impairing a thought for the benefit of a rhyme, and she pointed
out several such places in his compositions, ending thus:

"Bravo! for sunsets, for twilights, for moonshine, for deep silence, for
starry nights, and silvery seas--in such things you excel; on