I am going to take it with me."

"Where now?" asked the parents in one breath.

"Oh, home,--Chalons."

This reply seemed to merit some consideration, by the way the eyes
of Adolphus and Pauline regarded their child. They did not
understand her;--her meaning was deeper than her utterance.

"To Chalons?" repeated Adolphus, quietly.

"Home?" said Pauline;--it was almost the sweetest word she knew,
almost the easiest of utterance.

"You have promised me a hundred times that I should go. Did you mean
it? May I go? You wish me to see the old place and the old people.
But the old place is changing, and the old people are dying. Soon,
if I go to Chalons, it will not be your Chalons I shall see."

Dumb with wonder, Adolphus and Pauline looked at one another. To be
sure, they had done their best in order to excite in the breast of
Elizabeth such love of country as was worthy of their child, and
such curiosity about locality as would constrain her to cherish some
reverent regard for the place of their birth, the home of their
youthful love; but _never_ had they imagined the possibility of her
projecting a pilgrimage in that direction, except under their
guidance. They could hardly imagine it now. Often they had talked
over every step of that journey they would one day make together;
the progress was as familiar to Elizabeth as it could be made by the
description of another; but that they had succeeded in so awaking
the feeling of their child, that she should seriously propose making
the pilgrimage alone, passed their comprehension.

"You know," said Adolphus, with a shrug, "your father is an officer,
and he cannot now leave his post. Are you going to take your mother
along with you?"

He said these words at a venture, not certain of his ground. He was
not kept in suspense long.

"My mother must not leave you," answered Elizabeth, greatly agitated,
and yet speaking strongly, as one whose will exceeded her emotion.

"Then you go alone?" asked Adolphus, shortly. He could not
understand her, and was thoroughly vexed that he could not;
mysteries were not for him. "What is the matter? is it the prison?
Wife!" he turned to Pauline, but, as he looked at her, his
perplexity seemed to increase, as did his impatience also.

Wife and daughter evidently were not in league against him; she, the
mother of his child, shared his anxiety and doubt. Tears were in her
eyes, and he had only been impatient!--she had passed so quickly to