myself while you were reading it." "If a dish at table is not to our taste, there is no occasion to disgust others with it, child," the old lady continued benignly, "especially when marriage has seemed to us all, from Eve downwards, so excellent an institution. . . You have no mother?" The Countess trembled, then she raised her face meekly, and said: "I have missed my mother many times already during the past year; but I have myself to blame, I would not listen to my father. He was opposed to my marriage; he disapproved of Victor as a son-in-law." She looked at her aunt. The old face was lighted up with a kindly look, and a thrill of joy dried Julie's tears. She held out her young, soft hand to the old Marquise, who seemed to ask for it, and the understanding between the two women was completed by the close grasp of their fingers. "Poor orphan child!" The words came like a final flash of enlightenment to Julie. It seemed to her that she heard her father's prophetic voice again. "Your hands are burning! Are they always like this?" asked the Marquise. "The fever only left me seven or eight days ago." "You had a fever upon you, and said nothing about it to me!" "I have had it for a year," said Julie, with a kind of timid anxiety. "My good little angel, then your married life hitherto has been one long time of suffering?" Julie did not venture to reply, but an affirmative sign revealed the whole truth. "Then you are unhappy?" "On! no, no, aunt. Victor loves me, he almost idolizes me, and I adore him, he is so kind." "Yes, you love him; but you avoid him, do you not?" "Yes . . . sometimes . . . He seeks me too often." "And often when you are alone you are troubled with the fear that he may suddenly break in on your solitude?"