burst out sobbing ungracefully.

"My child," said the baroness, "these sentiments touch me, and honor
you. But retire, if you please, while I consult my daughters."

Jacintha cut her sobs dead short, and retreated with a formal reverence.

The consultation consisted of the baroness opening her arms, and both
her daughters embracing her at once. Proud as they were, they wept
with joy at having made one friend amongst all their servants. Jacintha
stayed.

As months rolled on, Rose de Beaurepaire recovered her natural gayety in
spite of bereavement and poverty; so strong are youth, and health,
and temperament. But her elder sister had a grief all her own: Captain
Dujardin, a gallant young officer, well-born, and his own master, had
courted her with her parents' consent; and, even when the baron began to
look coldly on the soldier of the Republic, young Dujardin, though too
proud to encounter the baron's irony and looks of scorn, would not yield
love to pique. He came no more to the chateau, but he would wait hours
and hours on the path to the little oratory in the park, on the bare
chance of a passing word or even a kind look from Josephine. So much
devotion gradually won a heart which in happier times she had been half
encouraged to give him; and, when he left her on a military service
of uncommon danger, the woman's reserve melted, and, in that moment of
mutual grief and passion, she vowed she loved him better than all the
world.

Letters from the camp breathing a devotion little short of worship
fed her attachment; and more than one public mention of his name and