“Oh, thank you! bless you for respecting as well as loving me, dear Camille,” said Josephine.

These words, uttered with gentle warmth, were some consolation to Camille, and confirmed him, as they were intended to do, in the above good resolution.  He smiled.

“Maladroit!” muttered Rose.

“Why maladroit?” asked Camille, opening his eyes.

“Let us talk of something else,” replied Rose, coolly.

Camille turned red.  He understood that he had done something very stupid, but he could not conceive what.  He looked from one sister to the other alternately.  Rose was smiling ironically, Josephine had her eyes bent demurely on a handkerchief she was embroidering.

That evening Camille drew Rose aside, and asked for an explanation of her “maladroit.”

“So it was,” replied Rose, sharply.

But as this did not make the matter quite clear, Camille begged a little further explanation.

“Was it your part to make difficulties?”

“No, indeed.”

“Was it for you to tell her a secret marriage would not be delicate?  Do you think she will be behind you in delicacy? or that a love without respect will satisfy her? yet you must go and tell her you respected her too much to ask her to marry you secretly.  In other words, situated as she is, you asked her not to marry you at all:  she consented to that directly; what else could you expect?”

“Maladroit! indeed,” said Camille, “but I would not have said it, only I thought”—­

“You thought nothing would induce her to marry secretly, so you said to yourself, ’I will assume a virtue:  I will do a bit of cheap self-denial:  decline to the sound of trumpets what another will be sure to deny me if I don’t—­ha! ha!’—­well, for your comfort, I am by no means so sure she might not have been brought to do anything for you, except openly defy mamma:  but now of course”—­

And here this young lady’s sentence ended:  for the sisters, unlike in most things, were one in grammar.

Camille was so disconcerted and sad at what he had done, that Rose began to pity him:  so she rallied him a little longer in spite of her pity:  and then all of a sudden gave him her hand, and said she would try and repair the mischief.

He began to smother her hand with kisses.

“Oh!” said she, “I don’t deserve all that:  I have a motive of my own; let me alone, child, do.  Your unlucky speech will be quoted to me a dozen times.  Never mind.”

Rose went and bribed Josephine to consent.

“Come, mamma shall not know, and as for you, you shall scarcely move in the matter; only do not oppose me very violently, and all will be well.”

“Ah, Rose!” said Josephine; “it is delightful—­terrible, I mean—­to have a little creature about one that reads one like this.  What shall I do?  What shall I do?”

“Why, do the best you can under all the circumstances.  His wound is healed, you know; he must go back to the army; you have both suffered to the limits of mortal endurance.  Is he to go away unhappy, in any doubt of your affection? and you to remain behind with the misery of self-reproach added to the desolation of absence?—­think.”