the first arrival; the conversation wandered for some time from subject to subject, and was very witty, very gay and very lively, which is the reason why we shall not give any account of it; we should be afraid that it would lose too much if transcribed. Mien, accent, fire in speech and gesture, the thousand ways of pronouncing a word, all the spirit of it; like the foam of champagne which sparkles and evaporates immediately, are things that it is impossible to fix and reproduce. It is a lacuna which we leave to be filled up by the reader, and with which he will assuredly deal better than we; let him here imagine five or six pages filled with everything of the most delicate, most capricious, most curiously fantastical, most elegant and most glittering description.
We are aware that we are here employing an artifice which tends to recall that of Timanthes who, despairing of his ability to adequately represent Agamemnon's face, threw a drapery over his head; but we would rather be timid than imprudent.
It might perhaps be to the purpose to inquire into the motives which had prompted D'Albert to get up so early in the morning, and the incentive which had induced him to visit Rosette as early as if he had been still in love with her. It looked as though it were a slight impulse of secret and unacknowledged jealousy. He was certainly not much attached to Rosette, and he would even have been very glad to get rid of her, but he wished at least to give her up himself and not to be given up by her, a thing which never fails to wound a man's pride deeply, however well extinguished his first flame may otherwise be.
Theodore was such a handsome cavalier that it was difficult to see him appearing in a connection without being apprehensive of what had, in fact, often happened already, apprehensive, that is, lest all eyes should be turned upon him and all hearts follow the eyes; and it was a singular thing that, although he had carried off many women, no lover had ever maintained towards him the lasting resentment which is usually entertained towards those who have supplanted you. In all his ways there was such a conquering charm, such natural grace, and something so sweet and proud, that even men were sensible of it. D'Albert, who had come to see Rosette with the intention of speaking to Theodore with tartness, should he meet him there, was quite surprised to find himself free from the slightest impulse of anger in his presence, and so ready to receive the advances that were made to him.
At the end of half-an-hour you would have thought them friends from childhood, and yet D'Albert had an intimate conviction that if Rosette was ever to love, it would be this man, and he had every reason to be jealous at least for the future, for as to the present, he had as yet no suspicion; what would it have been had he seen the fair one in a white dressing-gown gliding like a moth on a moon-ray into the handsome youth's room, and not coming out until three or four hours afterwards with mysterious precautions? He might truly have thought himself more unfortunate than he was, for one of the things that we scarcely ever see is a pretty, amorous woman coming out of the chamber of an equally pretty cavalier exactly as she went in.
Rosette listened to Theodore with great attention, and in the way that people listen to someone whom they love; but what he said was so amusing and varied, that this attention seemed only natural and was easy of explanation. Accordingly D'Albert did not take umbrage at it. Theodore's manner towards Rosette was polished and friendly, but nothing more.
“What shall we do to-day, Theodore?” said Rosette; “suppose we take a sail? what do you think? or we might go hunting?”
“Let us go hunting, it is less melancholy than gliding over the water side by side with some languid swan, and bending the leaves of the water-lilies right and left, — is that not your opinion, D'Albert?”
“I might perhaps prefer to flow along in the boat with the current of the stream to galloping desperately in pursuit of a poor beast; but I will go where you will. We have now only to let Madame Rosette get up, and assume a suitable costume.”
Rosette gave a sign of assent, and rang to have herself dressed. The two young men went off arm-in-arm, and it was easy to guess, seeing them so friendly together, that one was the formal lover and the other the beloved lover of the same person.
Everyone was soon ready. D'Albert and Theodore were already mounted in the first court when Rosette appeared in a riding-habit, on the top of the flight of steps. She had a little sprightly and easy air in this costume which became her very well. She leaped upon the saddle with her usual agility, and gave a switch to her horse which started off like an arrow, D'Albert struck in both his spurs and soon rejoined her, Theodore allowed them to get some way ahead, being sure of catching them up as soon as he wished to do so. He seemed to be waiting for something, and often looked round towards the mansion.
“Theodore, Theodore, come on! are you riding a wooden horse?” cried Rosette.
Theodore gave his animal a gallop, and diminished the distance separating him from Rosette, without, however, causing it to disappear.
He again looked towards the mansion of which they were beginning to lose sight; a little whirlwind of dust, in which something that could not yet be discerned was in very hasty motion, appeared at the end of the road. In a few moments it was at Theodore's side, and opening up, like the classic clouds in the Iliad, displayed the fresh and rosy face of the mysterious page.
“Theodore, come along!” cried Rosette a second time, “give your tortoise the spur and come up beside us.”
Theodore gave the rein to his horse which was pawing and rearing with impatience, and in a few seconds he was several heads in advance of D'Albert and Rosette.
“Whoever loves me will follow me,” said Theodore, leaping a fence four feet high. “Well, sir poet,” he said, when he was on the other side, “you do not jump? Yet your mount has wings, so people say.”
“Faith! I would rattier go round; I have only one head to break after all; if I had several I should try,” replied D'Albert, smiling.
“Nobody loves me then, since nobody follows me,” said Theodore drawing down the arched corners of his mouth even more than usual. The little page raised his large blue eyes towards him with a look of reproach, and brought his heels against his horse's sides.
The horse gave a prodigious bound.
“Yes! somebody,” he said to him on the other side of the fence.
Rosette cast a singular look upon the child and blushed up to her eyes; then, giving a furious stroke with her whip on the neck of her mare, she crossed the bar of apple-green wood which fenced the avenue.
“And I, Theodore, do you think that I do not love you?”
The child cast a sly side-glance at her, and drew close to Theodore.
D'Albert was already in the middle of the avenue, and saw nothing of all this; for from time immemorial, fathers, husbands, and lovers have been possessed of the privilege of seeing nothing.
“Isnabel,” said Theodore, “you are mad, and so are you, Rosette! Isnabel, you did not take sufficient room for the leap, and you, Rosette, nearly caught your dress in the posts. You might have killed yourself.”
“What matter?” replied Rosette with an accent so sad and melancholy, that Isnabel forgave her for having leaped the fence as well.
They went on for some time and reached the crossroads where they were to find huntsmen and pack. Six arches cut in the thickness of the forest led to a little stone tower with six sides, on each of which was engraved the name of the road that terminated there. The trees rose to such a height that it seemed as if they wished to card the fleecy, flaky clouds sailing over their heads before a somewhat strong breeze; close, high grass and impenetrable bushes afforded retreats and fortresses to the game, and the hunt promised to be a success. It was a genuine old-world forest, with ancient oaks more than a century old, such as are to be seen no longer now that we plant no more trees, and have not patience enough to wait until those that are planted have grown up; a hereditary forest planted by great-grandfathers for the fathers, and by the fathers for the grandsons, with avenues of prodigious breadth, an obelisk surmounted by a ball, a rock-work fountain, the indispensable pond, and white- powdered keepers in yellow leather breeches and sky-blue coats; one of those dark, bushy forests wherein stand out in admirable relief the white satiny cruppers of the great horses of Wouvermans, and the broad flags on the Dampierre horns, which Parrocelli loves to display radiant on the huntsmen's backs.
A multitude of dog's tails, like pruning knives or hedge-bills, were curled friskily in a dusty cloud. The signal was given, the dogs, which were straining hard enough at the leash to strangle themselves, were uncoupled, and the hunt began. We shall not describe. very minutely the turnings and windings of the stag through the forest; we do not even know with exactitude whether it was a full grown stag, and in spite of all our researches we have not been able to ascertain, which is really distressing. Nevertheless we think that only full grown stags could have been
