en to your faithful----"

Poor, poor Jacques! Fate played with him. For at the very moment when
he was about to fall upon his knees--just when his fate was to be
decided--just when he saw an Arcadian picture spread before him, in
its brilliant hues, all love and sunshine--that excellent old lady
Aunt Wimple entered, calmly smiling, and with rustling silk and
rattling key basket, dispelled all his fond romantic dreams.

Belle-bouche rose hastily and returned to her embroidery; Aunt Wimple
sat down comfortably, and commenced a flood of talk about the weather;
and Jacques fell back on an ottoman overcome with despair.

In half an hour he was slowly on his way back to town--his arms
hanging down, his head bent to his breast, his dreamy eyes fixed
intently upon vacancy.

Jacques saw nothing around him; Belle-bouche alone was in his
vision--Belle-bouche, who by another chance was snatched from him.

The odor of the peach blossoms seemed a weary sort of odor, and the
lark sang harshly.

As he passed through a meadow, he heard himself saluted by name--by
whom he knew not. He bowed without looking at the speaker; he only
murmured, "One more chance gone." As he passed the residence of Sir
Asinus, he heard that gentleman laughing at him; he only sighed,
"Belle-bouche!"

CHAPTER X.

MOWBRAY OPENS HIS HEART TO HIS NEW FRIEND.

Instead of following the melancholy Jacques to his chamber, let us
return to the meadow in which he had been saluted by the invisible
voice. A brook ran sparkling like a silver thread across the emerald
expanse, and along this brook were sauntering two students, one of
whom had spoken to the abstracted lover.

He who had addressed Jacques was Mowbray; the other was Hoffland, the
young student who had just arrived at Williamsburg.

Hoffland is much younger than his companion--indeed, seems scarcely to
have passed beyond boyhood; his stature is low, his figure is slender,
his hair flaxen and curling, his face ornamented only with a
peach-down mustache. He is clad in a suit of black richly embroidered;
wraps a slight cloak around him spite of the warmth of the pleasant
May afternoon; and his cocked hat, apparently too large for him,
droops over his face, falling low down upon his brow.

They walk on for a moment in silence.

Then Hoffland says, in a musical voice like that of a boy before his
tone undergoes the disagreeable change of manhood:

"You have not said how strange you thought t