“I have no reason to doubt the courage or sincerity of Mr. Stanhope,” said Mad. de la Tour; “but it is most natural to place our chief reliance on those whom we have long known and regarded; and Eustace is certainly more deeply concerned in the honor and safety of his uncle, than a stranger possibly can be.”

“His personal feelings may be more strongly interested,” replied Lucie; “but where honor or duty is involved, I believe Stanhope would peril his life against that of the bravest man in Christendom.”

“Your good opinion of this English stranger,” her aunt coolly replied, “seems rather to increase; but absence is a deceitful medium, particularly when the object viewed through it is invested with the attractions of a foolish partiality.”

“Absence has never influenced my feelings on this subject,” said Lucie, deeply coloring; “my opinion of Mr. Stanhope has been the same, from the earliest period of our acquaintance.”

“It is strange,” said Madame de la Tour, “that, for so long a time, you should have refrained from mentioning even the name of this valued friend to me; that you should have permitted the affection of De Valette to gain encouragement and strength, when you were resolved to disappoint it; and that too, from a romantic attachment, which you had little hope of realizing, and blushed to acknowledge!”

“I have no reason,” replied Lucie, “to blush for an attachment which was honorably sought, and bestowed on a worthy object; but involved, as it long was, in uncertainty, maidenly pride forbade the confession, even to you; and De Valette surely had no reason to expect it from me!  Without this motive, my regard for him never could have exceeded that of a friend, or sister; my conscience acquits me of having shewn him any ungenerous encouragement; and, if he suffers disappointment, he must seek the cause in his own pertinacious vanity, which led him to believe his pretensions irresistible.”

“It may rather be found in your own caprice, Lucie; a caprice which would lead few young women to reject an alliance in every respect so advantageous.”

“Had I no other objection to De Valette,” said Lucie, “I should be most unwilling to connect myself so closely with one, whose religious principles are directly at variance with those which I have been taught from childhood to reverence; my dear aunt Rossville often spoke to me on this subject, and almost in her last moments, warned me never to form an alliance which might endanger my faith, or expose me to the misery of finding it scorned by him to whom I had entrusted my happiness, and whose views and feelings would never unite with mine, on a subject of the highest concern and importance.”