way!  He tried to do so, but his efforts were fruitless:  the first Sunday arrived, and he was still two days’ journey from Verny.  In the evening he found himself in a large town, called Nuneville, fatigued with his now useless endeavours, and resolved to proceed no further that day.  Every thing seemed prepared for the festival—­the street was neat and clean—­the fountains adorned with branches, and decorated with large nosegays, tied together with beautiful ribands—­fir-trees marked the dwellings of the young females—­all had flowers around them, but he remarked, that one had only white ones on it, fastened with a crape riband—­the street was deserted.  Before he could reach the inn, which was at the other end of the town, he had to pass by the church and the burial-ground; the former seemed full of women, and in the latter there was an open grave.  This melancholy sight rendered it evident, that some one was dead; that her loss had suspended the public joy; and the bouquet, encircled with crape, had been planted before the “house of mourning.”  He entered the church-yard—­groups of females were walking there.  They were conversing in a low tone, and Henri discovered that the deceased was young and beautiful; and that she had been the victim of a misplaced affection; he could not restrain his tears, for he thought how near, perhaps, he had been occasioning the death of his Louise.  “But,” said one of the females, “why did she not imitate her fickle lover?  Why did she not receive the addresses of your brother Guillaume?”—­“She always told me,” replied Isabelle, (the person addressed, and who was in deeper mourning than the others,) “that she could only love once, and that she had no longer a heart to give.”—­“Well, then,” said another, “was she sure that her lover was faithless?”—­“Quite sure.  She had long feared that he was; she saw it in his letters, for when a woman like Marie loves, the heart divines every thing; still, however, she flattered herself with the fond hope that he would return, and that her forgiveness of his neglect would revive in him all his former affection.  Three months ago this hope was destroyed, she heard that he was—­married.  Since that time she has only languished; she wished to live for the sake of her parents, but her grief has proved the most powerful.  He quitted me in the month of May,” said she to me; “in the month of May I shall quit life.”  “That time is come, and Marie is no more.”—­“Tell us her whole history,” exclaimed two or three of the listeners, at once.  Isabelle consented; they were crowding round her, and Henri was approaching nearer, and redoubling his attention, when the funeral bell tolled drearily and solemnly.  He started, and Isabelle said, with a sigh, “I must tell you my dear friend’s story another time; we must now accompany her remains to their last sad home, and place these flowers upon her coffin.”