curved supports for the legs did not move fast enough to please him;
his pretty face, framed in fair curls that fell over his white collar,
smiled up like a cherub's at his mother when she said to him from the
depths of an easy-chair, "Not so much noise, Charles; you will wake
your little sister."

The inquisitive boy suddenly got off his horse, and treading on tiptoe
as if he were afraid of the sound of his feet on the carpet, came up
with one finger between his little teeth, and standing in one of those
childish attitudes that are so graceful because they are so perfectly
natural, raised the muslin veil that hid the rosy face of a little
girl sleeping on her mother's knee.

"Is Eugenie asleep, then?" said he, quite astonished. "Why is she
asleep when we are awake?" he added, looking up with large, liquid
black eyes.

"That only God can know," replied Caroline, with a smile.

The mother and boy gazed at the infant, only that morning baptized.

Caroline, now about four-and-twenty, showed the ripe beauty which had
expanded under the influence of cloudless happiness and constant
enjoyment. In her the Woman was complete.

Delighted to obey her dear Roger's every wish, she had acquired the
accomplishments she had lacked; she played the piano fairly well, and
sang sweetly. Ignorant of the customs of a world that would have
treated her as an outcast, and which she would not have cared for even
if it had welcomed her--for a happy woman does not care for the world