It was in vain that Walter ventured a half-sportive message in reply to this ceremonious return for his frank and affectionate remembrances--that, in playful mockery, he requested Adrienne to obtain for him "_Mademoiselle du Résnél's_ forgiveness for his temerity in still designating her by the familiar title of _La Petite Madelaine_." The reply was, if possible, more brief and chilling--so unlike (he could not but remark) to that he might reasonably have expected from his grateful and warm-hearted little friend, that a strange surmise, or rather a revived suspicion, suggested itself as the possible solution of his conjectures. But was it possible--(Walter's face flushed as bethought of his own _possible_ absurdity in so suspecting)--was it in the nature of things--that Adrienne, the peerless, the lovely and beloved, should conceive one jealous thought of the poor little Madelaine? The supposition was almost too ridiculous to be harboured for a moment--and yet _he_ remembered certain passages in their personal intercourse, when the strangeness (to use no harsher word) of Adrienne's behaviour to her cousin, had awakened in him an indefinite consciousness that his good-humoured notice of the poor little girl, and the kind word he was ever prompt to speak in her praise when she was absent, were likely to be anything but advantageous to her in their effect on the feelings of her patroness. One circumstance, in particular, recurred to him,--the recollection of a certain _jour de fête_, when la petite Madelaine (who had been dancing at a village gala, kept annually at the Manoir du Résnél in honour of Madame's name-day) presented herself, late in the evening, at St Hilaire, so blooming from the effects of her recent exhilarating exercise--her meek eyes so bright with the excitement of innocent gaiety, and her small delicate figure and youthful face set off so advantageously by her simple holiday dress, especially by her hat, _à la bergère_, garlanded with wild roses, that even the old people, M. and Mad. de St Hilaire, complimented her on her appearance, and himself (after whispering aside to Adrienne, "La Petite est jolie à ravir,") had sprung forward, and whirled her round the salon in a _tour de danse_, the effect of which impromptu was assuredly not to lessen the bloom upon her cheeks, which flushed over neck and brow, as, with the laughing familiarity of a brother, he commended her tasteful dress, and especially the pretty hat, which she must wear, and that only, he assured her, when she wished to be perfectly irresistible. Walter's sportive sally was soon over, and Madelaine's flush of beauty (the magical effect of happiness) soon faded. Both yielded to the influence of another spell--that wrought by the coldly discouraging looks of Adrienne, and by the asperity of the few sentences, which were all she condescended to utter during the remainder of the evening. When la petite Madelaine reappeared the next morning with her cousin (who,