When Miss de Haldimar joined her more youthful cousin at the window, through which the latter was gazing thoughtfully on the scene before her, she flung her arm around her waist with the protecting manner of a mother.  The mild blue eyes of Clara met those that were fastened in tenderness upon her, and a corresponding movement on her part brought the more matronly form of her cousin into close and affectionate contact with her own.

“Oh, Madeline, what a day is this!” she exclaimed; “and how often on my bended knees have I prayed to Heaven that it might arrive!  Our trials are ended at last, and happiness and joy are once more before us.  There is the boat that is to conduct us to the vessel, which, in its turn, is to bear me to the arms of my dear father, and you to those of the lover who adores you.  How beautiful does that fabric appear to me now!  Never did I feel half the pleasure in surveying it I do at this moment.”

“Dear, dear girl!” exclaimed Miss de Haldimar,—­and she pressed her closer and in silence to her heart:  then, after a slight pause, during which the mantling glow upon her brow told how deeply she desired the reunion alluded to by her cousin—­“that, indeed, will be an hour of happiness to us both, Clara; for irrevocably as our affections have been pledged, it would be silly in the extreme to deny that I long most ardently to be restored to him who is already my husband.  But, tell me,” she concluded, with an archness of expression that caused the long-lashed eyes of her companion to sink beneath her own, “are you quite sincere in your own case?  I know how deeply you love your father and your brothers, but do these alone occupy your attention?  Is there not a certain friend of Charles whom you have some little curiosity to see also?”

“How silly, Madeline!” and the cheek of the young girl became suffused with a deeper glow; “you know I have never seen this friend of my brother, how then can I possibly feel more than the most ordinary interest in him?  I am disposed to like him, certainly, for the mere reason that Charles does; but this is all.”

“Well, Clara, I will not pretend to decide; but certain it is, this is the last letter you received from Charles, and that it contains the strongest recommendations of his friend to your notice.  Equally certain is it, that scarcely a day has passed, since we have been shut up here, that you have not perused and re-perused it half a dozen times.  Now, as I am confessedly one who should know something of these matters, I must be suffered to pronounce these are strong symptoms, to say the very least.  Ah!  Clara, that blush declares you guilty.—­But, who have we here?  Middleton and Baynton.”

The eyes of the cousins now fell upon the ramparts immediately under the window.  Two officers, one apparently on duty for the day, were passing at the moment; and, as they heard their names pronounced, stopped, looked up, and saluted the young ladies with that easy freedom of manner, which, unmixed with either disrespect or effrontery, so usually characterises the address of military men.