whistled by, battalions struggled, we heard the cries of the wounded and were stifled by the smell of powder; wishing to avoid the harrowing sight of such dreadful carnage, I slackened my pace and was agreeably surprised to find, at a turn in the path, that I had deserted my colors; I listened and heard only the song of the bulfinch; I took a long breath and breathed only the odor of the woods; I looked above the birches and aspens for a cloud of smoke which would put me upon the track of the combatants; I saw only the blue sky smiling through the trees; I was alone; by one of those reactions of which I spoke, I sank insensibly into a deep revery.

It was intensely hot; I threw myself upon the grass, under the shadow of a thick hedge, and there lay listening to nature’s faint whispers, and the beating of my own heart.  The joy that I had just felt in meeting Edgar again, made the void in my heart, which friendship can never fill, all the more painful; my senses, subdued by the heat, chanted in endless elegies the serious and soothing conversation that we had had one evening under your lindens.  Whether I had a presentiment of some approaching change in my destiny, or whether I was simply overcome by the heat, I know not, but I was restless; my restlessness seemed to anticipate some indefinite happiness, and from afar the wind bore to me in warm puffs the cheering refrain:  “She exists, she exists, you will find her!”

I at last remembered that I had only been Madame de Meilhan’s guest a few hours, and that my abrupt disappearance must appear, to say the least, strange to her.  On the other hand, Edgar, whom I had treacherously abandoned in the greatest danger, would have serious grounds of complaint against me.  I arose, and driving away the winged dreams that hovered around me, like a swarm of bees round a hive, prepared to join my corps, with the cowardly hope that when I arrived, the engagement might be over and the victory won.  Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, I was unacquainted with the windings of the park, and wandered at random through its verdant labyrinths, the sun pouring down upon my devoted head until I heard the silvery murmur of a neighboring stream, babbling over its pebbly bed.  Attracted by the freshness of the spot, I approached and in the midst of a confusion of iris, mint and bindweed, I saw a blonde head quenching its thirst at the stream.  I could only see a mass of yellow hair wound in heavy golden coils around this head, and a little hand catching the water like an opal cup, which it afterwards raised to two lips as fresh as the crystal stream which they quaffed.  Her face and figure being entirely concealed by the aquatic plants which grew around the spring, I took her for a child, a girl of twelve or more, the daughter perhaps of one of the persons whom I had left upon the battle-field of Friedland.  I advanced a few steps nearer, and in my softest voice, for I was afraid of frightening her, said:  “Mademoiselle,