When this explanation was over, both parties sat looking at each other, in silent amazement.  Still Alida saw, or thought she saw, that, notwithstanding the previous professions of her admirer, the young man rejoiced he had been deceived.  Respect for delicacy and reserve in the other sex is so general and so natural among men, that they who succeed the most in destroying its barriers, rarely fail to regret their triumph; and he who truly loves can never long exult in any violation of propriety, in the object of his affections, even though the concession be made in his own favor.  Under the influence of this commendable and healthful feeling, Ludlow, while he was in some respects mortified at the turn affairs had taken, felt sensibly relieved from a load of doubt, to which the extraordinary language of the letter, he believed his mistress to have written, had given birth.  His companion read the state of his mind, in a countenance that was frank as face of sailor could be; and though secretly pleased to gain her former place in his respect, she was also vexed and wounded that he had ever presumed to distrust her reserve.  She still held the inexplicable billet and her eyes naturally sought the lines.  A sudden thought seemed to strike her mind, and returning the paper, she said coldly—­

“Captain Ludlow should know his correspondent better; I much mistake if this be the first of her communications.”

The young man colored to the temples, and hid his face, for a moment, in the hollow of his hands.

“You admit the truth of my suspicions,” continued la belle Barberie, “and
cannot be insensible of my justice, when I add, that henceforth------”

“Listen to me, Alida,” cried the youth, half breathless in his haste to interrupt a decision that he dreaded; “hear me, and as Heaven is my judge, you shall hear only truth.  I confess this is not the first of the letters, written in the same hand—­perhaps I should say in the same spirit—­but, on the honor of a loyal officer, I affirm, that until circumstances led me to think myself so happy—­so—­very happy,—­”

“I understand you, Sir:  the work was anonymous, until you saw fit to inscribe my name as its author.  Ludlow!  Ludlow! how meanly have you thought of the woman you profess to love!”

“That were impossible!  I mingle little with those who study the finesse of life; and loving, as I do, my noble profession, Alida, was it so unnatural to believe that another might view it with the same eyes?  But since you disavow the letter—­nay, your disavowal is unnecessary—­I see my vanity has even deceived me in the writing—­but since the delusion is over, I confess that I rejoice it is not so.”

La belle Barberie smiled, and her countenance grew brighter.  She enjoyed the triumph of knowing that she merited the respect of her suitor, and it was a triumph heightened by recent mortification.  Then succeeded a pause of more than a minute.  The embarrassment of the silence was happily interrupted by the return of Francois.