thanks, but M. Roulleau, in his unwonted energy, waved them aside. "There is one point," he went on, "in which I am sure mademoiselle's delicacy of feeling will unite with our own. It would desolate Mme. Roulleau and myself were our admirable M. Deshouliéres to have any idea of the difficulties this little arrangement may entail upon us. Whatever the world may say, I know well that he has not the means to assist as his generous heart would desire, yet without a question he would insist upon doing so. What then? The contest would lacerate us; we should not, indeed, consent, and mademoiselle would again have to seek a home. No, no, our friends may blame us - it bah! one must follow impulse some is possible times!" "Ah, how good you are to do this!" Thérèse cried out gratefully. She had a generous heart, and it smote her for not having sufficiently appre ciated the little man. When the two had gone away, monsieur still heroic, and madame injured, she felt as if a great dread had gone with them. Her heart in its rebound began to sing a little song without words-a song all about Fabien, and constancy, and meeting, and happiness. Wonderful things grew up quite naturally before her; sober people would have laughed or cried, as the case might be, could they have heard her music. For Thérèse was in that enchanter's castle, wherein at some time or other most of us wander for a little while, listening to the songs which are never sung so sweetly elsewhere, although we scarcely know it at the time, and cry out for a deeper and more satisfying harmony. CHAPTER V. "Lo, as some innocent and eager maiden Wonderful wooing and the grace of tears, -F. W. H. MYERS. THÉRÈSE, impressed by this conversation, was really grateful to the Roulleaus for their concession, grateful and a little touched by what seemed honest delicacy of feeling. Madame Roulleau, who could dig like a mole when she wanted to find out a character, had been digging and burrowing with all her skill while her husband was working in another way at Ardron, and knew pretty well by this time what strings to pull. People who have this sort of shrewdness can see a good deal without going far down; she did not reach the depths, but she was quite satisfied. was not worth her while to study all the complexities of the girl's nature, if she had tried doing so she would have had a baffling task, for there were plenty, indeed an unusual number of contradictions hung about It it. Probably Thérèse's education had something to do with all the contrarieties and incongruities which met you at every turn-she was tender and hard, resolute and timid, generous and distrustful; it was impossible to know which of the opposing qualities would come uppermost at a given moment: a great hopefulness, perhaps, impressed you the most. It was not insensibility to, but rather an inborn dread of, the sadnesses of life which made her cling to the bright side. In spite of what they may say, there are people who find a certain sort of enjoyment in trouble, they like to be made to weep over fictitious distresses, and there is a chord in them which responds at once to any call for sympathy. Thérèse was not one of these people to whom we turn in our sorrows, sure at least of being understood, if we are not helped. As yet she was impatient of sorrow, eager for happiness. She hated tragedies, sad books, minor music. As has been said, it was not that such things did not touch her perhaps if she had been indifferent she would not have minded them so much-but that her nature rose up in rebellion against them: they were to her part of Adam's curse. She had not learned that, after all, through the Infinite Love that uses sorrow and suffering for its instruments, they have caught a Divine beauty, a sweet solemn loveliness which by degrees reveals itself and wins our hearts. Thérèse believed only in one kind of happiness-that which we dream of when we see our wills gratified, our dreams realised, and all the little idols we have set up smiling down upon us from their pedestals: as we go on in life we find out sometimes that it was well our idols were shattered for us, or we might have been crushed under their weight; but Thérèse had no fear of this. When she thought of herself it was with the conviction that some day all her longings must be satisfied, her troubles ended and laid aside, everything completed, rounded off, and perfect. After that I think there came a golden haze. There is something half-pathetic, half-comforting, in this unlimited faith in coming happiness. We see where it fails, but every now and then it acts upon our wearied spirits like a breath of immortality. The girl had already met with enough to daunt her in her little life, although it had not had that effect; for she looked upon all the roughnesses of the road, so far, as things extraneous, and not in any real way belonging to her existence. Whatever part of her they affected, it was not her fixed belief in the rose-coloured days that were coming. stood resolute and unshaken. Nor while it lasted could she be said to have lost her courage; yet it had grown to have a strange admixture of timidity That |