“We were absent from the chateau one year.  It was pleasant to get back to the dear old place, where I had spent such a happy childhood, the scene too of so many precious interviews with your beloved father.  We returned again to our former life of quiet ease, enlivened at frequent intervals by the visits of guests from abroad and by those of friends and acquaintances among the neighboring nobility.  Though I received no tidings from your father, a secret hope still sustained me.  A few times only, during the first three years of his absence, did I lose my cheerfulness.  Those were, when some lover pressed his suit and I knew that in repelling it, I was upsetting some cherished scheme of my uncle.  But I will do him the justice to say that he bore it patiently, and, only at long intervals, gave vent to his vexation and disappointment.

“It was when my hope concerning your father’s return began to fail, and anxiety respecting his fate began to be indulged in its stead, that my spirits gave way.  At the close of the fourth year of his absence, my peace was wholly gone and my days were spent in the restless agony of suspense.  My health was rapidly failing, and my uncle who knew the cause of my prostration, instead of consulting a physician, in the kindness of his heart, took me to Paris.  But the gayeties to which I was there introduced were distasteful to me.  I grew every moment more sad.  Just when my uncle was in despair, I was introduced accidentally to the Countess de Morny, a lovely lady, who had lost her husband and three children, and had passed through much sorrow.

“Gradually, she drew me to her heart and I told her all my grief.  She dealt very tenderly with me, my Adele.  She did not seek to cheer me by inspiring fresh hopes of your father’s return.  No.  She told me, I might never be Claude Dubois’s happy bride, but that I might be the blessed bride of Jesus.  In short, she led me gently into the consolations of our Holy Church.  Under her influence and guidance I came into a state of sweet resignation to the divine will,—­a peaceful rest indeed, after the terrible alternations of suspense and despair I had suffered.  But, my Adele, it was only by constant prayers to the blessed Marie that my soul was kept from lapsing into its former state of dreadful unrest. Ma chere Adele, you know not what you do, when you speak slightingly of our Holy Church.  I should then have died, had I not found rest in my prayers to the blessed mother.  Now, you are young and gay, but the world is full of sorrow.  It may overtake you as it did me.  Then you will need a hope, a consolation, a refuge.  There is no peace like that found at the foot of the cross, imploring the intercession of the compassionate, loving Marie.  Do not wander away from the sweet eyes of the mother of Christ, ma fille”.

Here Mrs. Dubois ceased speaking, and turned a tearful, affectionate gaze upon her daughter.  Adele’s eyes, that had been fixed upon her mother with earnest, absorbed attention, filled with tears, instantly.