of her severity, and the woman freed, whose sweetness should make my love eternal!  What a difference.  Madame de Mortsauf was the skylark of Bengal, transported to our cold Europe, mournful on its perch, silent and dying in the cage of a naturalist; Henriette was the singing bird of oriental poems in groves beside the Ganges, flying from branch to branch like a living jewel amid the roses of a volkameria that ever blooms.  Her beauty grew more beautiful, her mind recovered strength.  The continual sparkle of this happiness was a secret between ourselves, for she dreaded the eye of the Abbe Dominis, the representative of the world; she masked her contentment with playfulness, and covered the proofs of her tenderness with the banner of gratitude.

“We have put your friendship to a severe test, Felix; we may give you the same rights we give to Jacques, may we not, Monsieur l’abbe?” she said one day.

The stern abbe answered with the smile of a man who can read the human heart and see its purity; for the countess he always showed the respect mingled with adoration which the angels inspire.  Twice during those fifty days the countess passed beyond the limits in which we held our affection.  But even these infringements were shrouded in a veil, never lifted until the final hour when avowal came.  One morning, during the first days of the count’s illness, when she repented her harsh treatment in withdrawing the innocent privileges she had formerly granted me, I was expecting her to relieve my watch.  Much fatigued, I fell asleep, my head against the wall.  I wakened suddenly at the touch of something cool upon my forehead which gave me a sensation as if a rose had rested there.  I opened my eyes and saw the countess, standing a few steps distant, who said, “I have just come.”  I rose to leave the room, but as I bade her good-bye I took her hand; it was moist and trembling.

“Are you ill?” I said.

“Why do you ask that question?” she replied.

I looked at her blushing and confused.  “I was dreaming,” I replied.

Another time, when Monsieur Origet had announced positively that the count was convalescent, I was lying with Jacques and Madeleine on the step of the portico intent on a game of spillikins which we were playing with bits of straw and hooks made of pins; Monsieur de Mortsauf was asleep.  The doctor, while waiting for his horse to be harnessed, was talking with the countess in the salon.  Monsieur Origet went away without my noticing his departure.  After he left, Henriette leaned against the window, from which she watched us for some time without our seeing her.  It was one of those warm evenings when the sky is copper-colored and the earth sends up among the echoes a myriad mingling noises.  A last ray of sunlight was leaving the roofs, the flowers in the garden perfumed the air, the bells of the cattle returning to their stalls sounded in the distance.  We were all conforming to the silence of the evening hour and hushing our