From this time Anielka remained always in her young mistress’s room; she was better dressed, and Mdlle.  Dufour ceased to persecute her.  To what did she owe this sudden change?  Perhaps to a remonstrance from Leon.  Constantia ordered Anielka to sit beside her whilst taking her lessons from her music masters, and on her going to the drawing-room, she was left in her apartments alone.  Being thus more kindly treated.  Anielka lost by degrees her timidity; and when her young mistress, whilst occupied over some embroidery, would tell her to sing, she did so boldly and with a steady voice.  A greater favor awaited her.  Constantia, when unoccupied, began teaching Anielka to read in Polish; and Mdlle.  Dufour thought it politic to follow the example of her mistress, and began to teach her French.

Meanwhile, a new kind of torment commenced.  Having easily learnt the two languages, Anielka acquired an irresistible passion for reading.  Books had for her the charm of the forbidden fruit, for she could only read by stealth at night, or when her mistress went visiting in the neighborhood.  The kindness hitherto shown her for a time, began to relax.  Leon had set off on a tour, accompanied by his old tutor, and a bosom friend, as young, as gay, and as thoughtless as himself.

So passed the two years of Leon’s absence.  When he returned, Anielka was seventeen, and had become tall and handsome.  No one who had not seen her during this time, would have recognized her.  Of this number was Leon.  In the midst of perpetual gayety and change, it was not possible he could have remembered a poor peasant girl; but in Anielka’s memory he had remained as a superior being, as her benefactor, as the only one who had spoken kindly to her, when poor, neglected, forlorn!  When in some French romance she met with a young man of twenty, of a noble character and handsome appearance, she bestowed on him the name of Leon.  The recollection of the kiss be had given her ever brought a burning blush to her cheek, and made her sigh deeply.

One day Leon came to his sister’s room.  Anielka was there, seated in a corner at work.  Leon himself had considerably changed; from a boy he had grown into a man.  “I suppose, Constantia,” he said, “you have been told what a, good boy I am, and with what docility I shall submit myself to the matrimonial yoke, which the Count and Countess have provided for me?” and he began whistling, and danced some steps of the Mazurka.

“Perhaps you will be refused,” said Constantia coldly.

“Refused!  Oh, no.  The old Prince has already given his consent, and as for his daughter, she is desperately in love with me.  Look at these moustachios; could anything be more irresistible?” and he glanced in the glass and twirled them round his fingers; then continuing in a graver tone, he said, “To tell the sober truth, I cannot say that I reciprocate.  My intended is not at all to my taste.  She is nearly thirty, and so thin, that whenever I look at her, I am reminded of my old tutor’s anatomical sketches.  But, thanks to her Parisian dress-maker, she makes up a tolerably good figure, and looks well in a Cachemere.  Of all things, you know, I wished for a wife with an imposing appearance, and I don’t care about love.  I find it’s not fashionable, and only exists in the exalted imagination of poets.”