This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm and said-- “Don’t laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it does not mean anything. It--it--don’t laugh--Fanny feels so sad!” “Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out.” Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the leaves of the yellow autumn. Fanny was the first to break silence. “Do you know,” she said, timidly, “that people here think me very silly?--do you think so too?” Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated. Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly. “Well,” she said, “you don’t answer?” “My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song, for instance!” “What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking.” “Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put to me that question?” “I have forgotten,” said Fanny, absently, and looking down. Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart, and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face may awaken to every coarse heart--to love Fanny! No, it was impossible! For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had forgotten to guard? And she--could she even know what love was? He despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which separated Fanny from the world of women. He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his companion. “Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it. Why does everything in life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how good you are to us both, when--when Ah! I don’t understand--it pains--it puzzles me!”