In the mean time, Eugene returned to the village.  He was violently affected, when the story of Annette was told him.  With bitterness of heart he upbraided his own rashness and infatuation that had hurried him away from her, and accused himself as the author of all her woes.  His mother would describe to him all the anguish and remorse of poor Annette; the tenderness with which she clung to her, and endeavoured, even in the midst of her insanity, to console her for the loss of her son, and the touching expressions of affection that were mingled with her most incoherent wanderings of thought, until his feelings would be wound up to agony, and he would entreat her to desist from the recital.  They did not dare as yet to bring him into Annette’s sight; but he was permitted to see her when she was sleeping.  The tears streamed down his sunburnt cheeks, as he contemplated the ravages which grief and malady had made; and his heart swelled almost to breaking, as he beheld round her neck the very braid of hair which she once gave him in token of girlish affection, and which he had returned to her in anger.

At length the physician that attended her determined to adventure upon an experiment, to take advantage of one of those cheerful moods when her mind was visited by hope, and to endeavour to engraft, as it were, the reality upon the delusions of her fancy.  These moods had now become very rare, for nature was sinking under the continual pressure of her mental malady, and the principle of reaction was daily growing weaker.  Every effort was tried to bring on a cheerful interval of the kind.  Several of her most favourite companions were kept continually about her; they chatted gayly, they laughed, and sang, and danced; but Annette reclined with languid frame and hollow eye, and took no part in their gayety.  At length the winter was gone; the trees put forth their leaves; the swallows began to build in the eaves of the house, and the robin and wren piped all day beneath the window.  Annette’s spirits gradually revived.  She began to deck her person with unusual care; and bringing forth a basket of artificial flowers, she went to work to wreathe a bridal chaplet of white roses.  Her companions asked her why she prepared the chaplet.  “What!” said she with a smile, “have you not noticed the trees putting on their wedding dresses of blossoms?  Has not the swallow flown back over the sea?  Do you not know that the time is come for Eugene to return? that he will be home to-morrow, and that on Sunday we are to be married?”

Her words were repeated to the physician, and he seized on them at once.  He directed that her idea should be encouraged and acted upon.  Her words were echoed through the house.  Every one talked of the return of Eugene, as a matter of course; they congratulated her upon her approaching happiness, and assisted her in her preparations.  The next morning, the same theme was resumed.  She was dressed out to receive her lover.  Every bosom fluttered with anxiety.  A cabriolet drove into the village.  “Eugene is coming!” was the cry.  She saw him alight at the door, and rushed with a shriek into his arms.