The married pair were indeed embarked together on a rough sea, with little provision for the voyage, to which they had been in a manner prematurely driven; but, by the blessing of Providence, they weathered out its storms, now sheltering for a season in some calm and friendly haven, and anon compelled (but with recruited courage) to renew their conflict with the winds and waves. But throughout, their hearts were strong, for they were faithfully united; and that devoted affection for her husband, which had saved the heart of Madelaine from breaking in its first and sharpest agony (the sharpest, because mingled with remorse), was the continued support and sweetener of her after-life, through a lot of infinite vicissitude. If haply I have evinced some partiality to poor little Madelaine, even in the detail of her unsanctioned nuptials, accuse me not, reader, of making light of the sin of filial disobedience. I have told you that _she judged herself_;--let you and I do likewise, and abstain from passing sentence on others. But if your Christian charity, righteous reader! is so rigidly exacting as to require punishment as well as penitence, be comforted even on that score, and lay the assurance to your feeling heart, that la petite Madelaine _had_ her full share of worldly troubles; the last and crowning one of all, that she was doomed to be, by some years, the survivor of the husband of her youth--the friend and companion of her life--the prop and staff of her declining days. But she was not long an outcast from her own people and her early home. "Le petit frère" found means, soon after the attainment of his majority, and the full rights and titles it conferred on him, as lord of himself and the Manoir du Résnél, to prevail on his lady-mother (who still remained mistress of the establishment) to receive, on the footing of occasional guests, her long-banished child, with her English husband. From that time, Monsieur du Résnél proved himself, on all occasions, the affectionate brother and unfailing friend of Walter and Madelaine; and the good understanding then established between themselves and Madame du Résnél was never interrupted, though jealousies among the elder sisters were always at work to undermine it by innumerable petty artifices. Madame was not their dupe, however. Nature had formed her with a cold heart, but a strong understanding. She felt and knew that the respect and attention invariably shown towards her by Madelaine and her husband, were the fruits of right principle and kindly disposition, unswayed by any interested consideration, and that her other daughters were actuated by the sordid view of appropriating to themselves exclusively, at her decease, the small hoard she might have accumulated in the long course of her rigid and undeviating economy. As the burden of years pressed more heavily upon her, she became more and more sensible of the worth and tenderness of her once-slighted Madelaine; and when circumstances