very moment I beheld her—before she even turned her eyes upon me, the sight seemed to waken in an instant, dreams of happy early days—sweet thoughts and feelings, which had slumbered for years unawakened by the careless storekeeper, Memory. It was therefore over these thoughts and feelings that I paused and reflected, for so many hours. I have often remarked in the course of life—in others as well as myself—a somewhat curious phenomenon: namely, that when some great and important—shall I call it change? No, not change. There are no changes in human fate. They are all steps—steps toward a certain goal—That when some great and important step, then, in human fate, is to be taken, we feel an impression of the coming fact—we see, as it were, with the eyes of the spirit, without the interference of the cold, hard, short-sighted intellect, the awful magnitude of that which is before us; and we are impelled to mark what at other times would seem the merest trifles with anxious acuteness—to scan, as it were, the very pebbles in our path, lest a rolling stone should make us lose our footing, and hurl us over the precipice which we feel to be near at hand, though the mists and darkness of our earthly being may hide the actual presence of the yawning gulf. What was to me a lady fainting in a carriage? What was there extraordinary in a delicate woman giving way after an exciting scene, and long and unusual fatigue? What was there in all that I had seen, which could not be explained by a multitude of ordinary circumstances—which I should not have left, at any other time, to rest unthought of amongst the common, insignificant events of a day? And yet I sat and pondered for four long hours, and even after I retired to bed I could not sleep, but was kept awake with the same anxious thoughts. Father Bonneville returned about two o’clock on the following day; but with a lack of confidence which I rarely showed toward him—for he was so gentle and so good, who could want confidence in him—I did not mention at all, the little incident which had occurred at the mill. I told him, however, all about the supposed sight I had caught of Mariette, but the good Father only smiled at me. “You are always thinking of Mariette, Louis,” he said, “and if you go on so, I shall really fancy you are in love with her memory.” “And so I am,” I answered frankly, “I can imagine a father would so love a child, as I love Mariette; and I shall always love her so.” “My dear boy,” replied Father Bonneville, laying his hand impressively upon my arm, “that is impossible. You and Mariette are no longer children; you might love her as a brother when you last saw her; but if you love her at all, you must love her otherwise now.”