The shade upon her face had deepened for a moment into a look of trouble; but a bright philosophy, which was part of her paternal birthright, quickly chased it away, and she passed to her room, disrobed, lay softly down beside the beauty already there and smiled herself to sleep,-- "Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again." But she also wakened again, and lay beside her unconscious bedmate, occupied with the company of her own thoughts.

"Why should these little concealments ruffle my bosom?
Does not even Nature herself practise wiles?
Look at the innocent birds; do they build where everybody can count their eggs?
And shall a poor human creature try to be better than a bird?
Didn't I say my prayers under the blanket just now ?" Her companion stirred in her sleep, and she rose upon one elbow to bend upon the sleeper a gaze of ardent admiration.

"Ah, beautiful little chick! how guileless! indeed, how deficient in that respect!" She sat up in the bed and hearkened; the bell struck for midnight.

Was that the hour?
The fates were smiling! Surely M.Assonquer himself must have wakened her to so choice an opportunity.

She ought not to despise it.
Now, by the application of another and easily wrought charm, that darkened hour lately spent with Palmyre would have, as it were, its colors set.
The night had grown much cooler.