So then the new-married couple could wander hand in hand through the thick woods of Beaurepaire, whose fresh green leaves were now just out, and hear the distant cuckoo, and sit on mossy banks, and pour love into one another's eyes, and plan ages of happiness, and murmur their deep passion and their bliss almost more than mortal; could do all this and more, without shocking propriety.

These sweet duets passed for trios: for on their return Rose would be out looking for them, or would go and meet them at some distance, and all three would go up together to the baroness, as from a joint excursion.

And when they went up to their bedrooms, Josephine would throw her arms round her sister's neck, and sigh, "It is not happiness, it is beatitude!" Meantime, the baroness mourned for Raynal.

Her grief showed no decrease.
Rose even fancied at times she wore a gloomy and discontented look as well; but on reflection she attributed that to her own fancy, or to the contrast that had now sprung up in her sister's beaming complacency.
Rose, when she found herself left day after day alone for hours, was sad and thought of Edouard.

And this feeling gained on her day by day.
At last, one afternoon, she locked herself in her own room, and, after a long contest with her pride, which, if not indomitable, was next door to it, she sat down to write him a little letter.