Madelaine loved often, in after-life, to talk of them with that dear brother, always her faithful friend. So time went on--Time, the traveller whose pace is so variously designated by various humours, is always the restless, the unpausing--till Mademoiselle de St Hilaire had attained the perfection of blooming womanhood--the glowing loveliness of her one-and-twentieth summer--and la petite Madelaine began to think people ought to treat her more like a woman--for was she not fifteen complete? Poor little Madelaine! thou hadst indeed arrived at that most womanly era. But, to look at that small slight form, still childishly attired in frock and sash, of the simplest form and homeliest materials--at that almost infantine face, that looked _more_ youthful, and _almost_ beautiful, when it smiled, from the effect of a certain dimple in the left cheek (Adrienne always insisted it was a pock-mark);--to look at that form and face, and the babyish curls of light-brown hair that hung about it quite down the little throat, and lay clustering on the girlish neck--who could ever have thought of paying thee honour due as to the dignity of confirmed womanhood? So it was Madelaine's fate still to be "La petite Madelaine"--still nobody--that anomalous personage who plays so many parts in society,--as often to suit his own convenience as for that of others; and though people are apt to murmur at being forced into the character, many a one lives to assume it willingly--as one slips off a troublesome costume at a masque, to take shelter under a quiet domino. As for la petite Madelaine, who did not care very much about the matter, though it was a _little_ mortifying to be patted on the head, and called "bonne petite," instead of "mademoiselle," as was her undoubted right, from strangers at least, it was better to be _somebody_ in one or two hearts (le petit frère et Jeannette) than in the mere _respects_ of a hundred indifferent people; and as for la belle cousine, Madelaine, though on excellent terms with her, never dreamed of her having a heart,--one cause, perhaps, of their mutual good understanding; for la petite Madelaine, actuated by instinctive perception, felt that it would be perfectly irrational to expect warmth of affection from one constituted so differently from herself; so she went on, satisfied with the consciousness of giving pleasure, and with such return as was made for it.