impediments which the world is so fond of bringing face to face with
any established mutual attachment of ardent hearts. It was enough for
me that a sweet, confiding simplicity looked trustfully out of the
depths of her brown eyes and hovered with unconscious witchery around
her pretty red lips. The very way in which she raised her beautiful
chin, so hopefully, so winningly, when she talked, would have
conquered me, independent of her other attractions. Although there
were no fascinating depths to my grey eyes, and no witchery, natural
or artificial, in the smile my lips afforded, Hortense, I venture to
say, fully reciprocated the love and trust which I so earnestly
bestowed upon her. There was no uncertainty about our friendship, no
wavering, no questioning, no doubt. The embers glowed with a strong
and steady and cheerful intensity, and we sat before them basking in
their comfortable warmth, and sheltering our hearts from the chilling
coldness of the world without. Oh! these were happy days that
compensated for all the loneliness I had endured in my childhood.
After all, I had only been treasuring up my desire for companionship
and not sacrificing it, which made my sentiments only the more ardent
when an opportunity came at last to indulge them. Looking back from
that sunlit eminence upon the shadowy years of my previous life, I was
able to smile and forget everything, in the blissful consciousness
that a rare, undreamt-of happiness had overtaken me after all, and had
flooded my lot with its dazzling loveliness; and even now I see it
standing prominently above all the other varied epochs of my life I
can follow with a distinct remembrance, one day after another as they
merged into a riper period of my existence, the spot where a shadow
first came over the sunshine of our lives has never been a past to me.

I remained at Notre Dame Abbey pursuing my studies devotedly until I
was upon the threshold of my twentieth year. A letter from my father