We usually took these promenades on the green turf of a long avenue of leafy oak-trees. As long as Mlle. de Verteuil remained with us I was gay and talkative, and Hélène, who was naturally dreamy, would brighten up and become quite animated; but as soon as Sophie left us we fell into interminable silences, of which I was quite ashamed, but which seemed to me perfectly blissful. I soon afterwards wrote to a friend in London to send me some fine horses, several grooms, and two or three carriages of different sorts. My season of mourning was about to end. The arrival of all these equipages made a sort of little fête at Serval. I had kept it a secret, and I well remember Hélène's childish and simple pleasure, when one beautiful evening in August, upon expressing a wish to drive in the forest, she saw, instead of one of our ordinary carriages, a charming calèche, with four black horses, harnessed _en d'Aumont_, and mounted by two little English postilions, dressed in pearl gray velveteen. She climbed into the chariot, accompanied by her mother and her friend. I rode beside them on horseback through that magnificent forest, and we returned slowly to the château, in the beautiful moonlight, which shone so picturesquely through the long, dark avenues of grand old trees. While speaking of this drive, I should wish to state that I have never met with a woman who seemed more in keeping with luxurious surroundings, or, rather, one who heightened the effect of luxury more than Hélène; she possessed such stateliness, joined to such an enchanting and involuntary grace, that it was impossible to think of her except as constantly surrounded by every object of the best and most cultivated taste. Thus without being extraordinarily beautiful, Hélène would have become one of those rare women, whose dress, equipage or home, we never think of admiring, no matter how supremely elegant they all may be,--the pervading woman harmonising and assimilating all these beautiful accessories. So many people are simply an advertisement of, or a contrast to, their wealth, and so few know how to cast upon their luxury that beautiful reflection, which, like a ray of sunshine, embellishes even the most magnificent object! One evening, on returning from our drive, and as we were waiting for tea to be served, Hélène proposed that we should remain without lights in the salon, and that the windows should be opened so that the soft rays of the moonlight might shine into the room; to this her mother gave consent. Nothing was ever more melancholy than this vast apartment thus illuminated; so that from talking gaily, we gradually all became silent.