loveliest girl in the village had had the finest May-offering. Oh! could
he but arrive soon enough to announce his return in that way! He tried
to do so, but his efforts were fruitless: the first Sunday arrived,
and he was still two days' journey from Verny. In the evening he found
himself in a large town, called Nuneville, fatigued with his now useless
endeavours, and resolved to proceed no further that day. Every thing
seemed prepared for the festival--the street was neat and clean--the
fountains adorned with branches, and decorated with large nosegays,
tied together with beautiful ribands--fir-trees marked the dwellings of
the young females--all had flowers around them, but he remarked, that
_one_ had only white ones on it, fastened with a crape riband--the
street was deserted. Before he could reach the inn, which was at
the other end of the town, he had to pass by the church and the
burial-ground; the former seemed full of women, and in the latter there
was an open grave. This melancholy sight rendered it evident, that some
one was dead; that her loss had suspended the public joy; and the
_bouquet_, encircled with crape, had been planted before the "house
of mourning." He entered the church-yard--groups of females were walking
there. They were conversing in a low tone, and Henri discovered that the
deceased was young and beautiful; and that she had been the victim of a
misplaced affection; he could not restrain his tears, for he thought how
near, perhaps, he had been occasioning the death of his Louise. "But,"
said one of the females, "why did she not imitate her fickle lover? Why
did she not receive the addresses of your brother Guillaume?"--"She
always told me," replied Isabelle, (the person addressed, and who was in
deeper mourning than the others,) "that she could only love once, and
that she had no longer a heart to give."--"Well, then," said another,
"was she sure that her lover was faithless?"--"Quite sure. She had
long feared that he was; she saw it in his letters, for when a woman
like Marie loves, the heart divines every thing; still, however, she