In this case she had the satisfaction of being the one to propose the discontinuance of the lessons.  At Madame Ray’s she was simply dismissed.  About the close of winter she was told that as Isabelle was soon to be married she would have no time for music till her wedding was over, and about the same time the d’Etaples told her much the same thing.  This was not to be wondered at, for Mademoiselle Ray was engaged to an officer of dragoons, the same Marcel d’Etaples who had acted with her in Scylla and Charybdis, and Madame Ray, being a watchful mother, was not long in perceiving that Marcel came to pay court to Isabelle too frequently at the hour for her music-lesson.  Madame d’Etaples on her part had made a similar discovery, and both judged that the presence of so beautiful a girl, in Jacqueline’s position, might not be desirable in these interviews between lovers.

When Giselle, as she was about to leave town for the country in July, begged Jacqueline, who seemed run down and out of spirits, to come and stay with her, the poor child was very glad to accept the invitation.  Her pupils were leaving her one after another, she could not understand why, and she was bored to death in the convent, whose strict rules were drawn tighter on her than before, for the nuns had begun to understand her better, and to discover the real worldliness of her character.  At the same time, that retreat within these pious walls no longer seemed like paradise to Jacqueline; her transition from the deepest crape to the softer tints of half mourning, seemed to make her less of an angel in their eyes.  They said to each other that Mademoiselle de Nailles was fanciful, and fancies are the very last things wanted in a convent, for fancies can brave bolts, and make their escape beyond stone walls, whatever means may be taken to clip their wings.

“She does not seem like the same person,” cried the good sisters, who had been greatly edified at first by her behavior, and who were almost ready now to be shocked at her.

The course of things was coming back rapidly into its natural channel; in obedience to the law which makes a tree, apparently dead, put forth shoots in springtime.  And that inevitable re-budding and reblossoming was beautiful to see in this young human plant.  M. de Talbrun, Jacqueline’s host, could not fail to perceive it.  At first he had been annoyed with Giselle for giving the invitation, having a habit of finding fault with everything he had not ordered or suggested, by virtue of his marital authority, and also because he hated above all things, as he said, to have people in his house who were “wobegones.”  But in a week he was quite reconciled to the idea of keeping Mademoiselle de Nailles all the summer at the Chateau de Fresne.  Never had Giselle known him to take so much trouble to be amiable, and indeed Jacqueline saw him much more to advantage at home than in Paris, where, as she had often said, he diffused too strong an odor of the stables.  At Fresne,