"Come, come, Dubourg, stop blowing your nose; you know perfectly well that you're not crying." "Never mind; she was a most respectable old lady: she has left me sixteen hundred francs a year." "That is something; try not to gamble it away." "What do you say? Why, écarté is like an emetic to me. But tell me about your love affairs. Do you know, you don't seem to me to look any too wretched for an unhappy lover." "But I---- Since my father suddenly appeared at Grenoble, where I had gone to find out something about you, I have not been able to see that poor girl, we started for Paris so hurriedly! Since then, he hardly leaves my side. I could write--but who would read my letters? we can't use that method; and I don't know how to communicate with her." "Well, I can tell you something." "Have you seen her?" "Yes; but it was a long while ago--about a fortnight after you left." "Well! where was she? what was she doing?" "Where was she? in the woods, returning from the road, where she had been watching for you, no doubt. What was she doing?--weeping; that is her only resource now, I fancy." "She was weeping!" "Yes; and I confess that she made my heart ache." "Poor child! but you spoke to her, I suppose--she saw you? Tell me about it." "She saw me; indeed, she recognized me, although she had seen me only once. You didn't tell me that she was dumb, but I very soon understood her pantomime. She counted off the days you had been away, and asked me if you would return soon. I told her _yes_." "Ah! you did well." "But that was three months ago." "True: but I haven't been able----" "I left her at last, after giving her a little hope; I could do nothing more for her; but in three months that hope must have vanished." Dubourg said no more, and Frédéric sat for some moments buried in melancholy reflections. "If you knew, Dubourg," he said at last, "what a most surprising thing has happened to me!" "I should know, if you told me." "It is really inconceivable; it is a stroke of fate. On returning to Paris, I found Sister Anne." "You found her here?" "Yes; I saw her again--in another woman, the niece of Général de Valmont, a former comrade in arms of my father. Why, my friend, it is an astonishing thing--I never saw such a perfect resemblance." "Ah! I begin to understand." "If you should see Constance,--that is the name of the general's niece,--you would be as surprised as I was--not at once, but on a close examination." "Ah! you were surprised after some time, eh?" "It's her eyes--their sweet expression. Constance's are a little darker, to be sure. The hair is the same color; the forehead as high and noble; the same complexion--but Constance isn't as pale as Sister Anne. The same expression in the features." "I am surprised that a general's niece should have all the features of a goatherd."