Captain Clairville, indignant at the treatment she received, felt all his sympathies enlisted in her behalf, and as respectfully as he would have addressed a duchess he approached, and with a few soothing words endeavored to draw her toward a seat, for he saw that she was too much overcome to stand. She however resisted his effort, but the interest he thus expressed for her aroused the wrath of Madame de Rochemont, who loaded the poor girl with the most opprobrious epithets, while the sullen mood of Alicia changed to open resentment. Throwing down her cornucopia, and tearing from her arms and head the rose-wreaths that encircled them, she flung them scornfully upon the floor, darting, at the same time, such looks of anger at Captain Clairville, as forced him to the inward conviction that his bright mistress would better personate one of the Furies than any gentler deity. When Grayson saw the roses she had taken such unworthy pains to obtain, cast angrily away, she quite forgot where she was, and rushing forward she caught them up, declaring that “her young lady should not be cheated out of her roses by the false tears and impudence of that beggarly girl.” Terrified by the evil passions which were producing such a scene of confusion around her, the gentle Rosalie began to look almost with indifference on the precious roses, which lay withering in the heated air of the apartment. Their pure leaves had been nurtured by tender tears and loving smiles, and now that the hot breath of envy and resentment had breathed on them, they seemed to her no longer the same, and all unworthy to shed fragrance on the couch of the dying, or lend beauty to the place of the dead. “I must be gone,” she said to Captain Clairville, who still remained near her—“my father will miss me—but I care no longer for the flowers—let her wear them, they are fitter now for joy and beauty than for sorrow and death.” She was fearfully agitated—her frame trembled—her face was deathly pale—unaccustomed to such outbursts of the lower passions, their exhibition, invoked by herself, filled her with terror; she betrayed a nervous anxiety to escape, like one in a den of ferocious animals, and shrank close to the side of Captain Clairville as she moved toward the door, seemingly afraid to go forward alone. When about to descend the stairs he saw her falter, and supported her to the hall, but before they reached it she had fainted. Ferris stood there with her bonnet and shawl on. “There is a cariole at the door, sir,” she said, “I will go with her, I know the place.” “I fear you will lose your situation, my good girl, if you take the part of this poor young thing,” said Captain Clairville. “I shall not mind, sir; there are plenty more as good,” she answered. “There are, Ferris,” he replied, “and you shall not suffer for your kindness.”