“Wait, wait. But immediately after having given you that advice, I should have added,--‘Louise, it is very dangerous to pass whole days with your head drooping, your hands unoccupied, your eyes restless and full of thought; it is dangerous to prefer the least frequented paths, and no longer be amused with such diversions as gladden young girls’ hearts; it is dangerous, Louise, to scrawl with the point of your foot, as you do, upon the gravel, certain letters it is useless for you to efface, but which appear again under your heel, particularly when those letters rather resemble the letter L than the letter B; and, lastly, it is dangerous to allow the mind to dwell on a thousand wild fancies, the fruits of solitude and heartache; these fancies, while they sink into a young girl’s mind, make her cheeks sink in also, so that it is not unusual, on such occasions, to find the most delightful persons in the world become the most disagreeable, and the wittiest to become the dullest.’” “I thank you, dearest Aure,” replied La Vallière, gently; “it is like you to speak to me in this manner, and I thank you for it.” “It was only for the benefit of wild dreamers, such as I have just described, that I spoke; do not take any of my words, then, to yourself, except such as you think you deserve. Stay, I hardly know what story recurs to my memory of some silly or melancholy girl, who was gradually pining away because she fancied that the prince, or the king, or the emperor, whoever it was--and it does not matter much which--had fallen in love with her; while on the contrary, the prince, or the king, or the emperor, whichever you please, was plainly in love with some one else, and--a singular circumstance, one, indeed, which she could not perceive, although every one around and about her perceived it clearly enough-- made use of her as a screen for his own love affair. You laugh as I do, at this poor silly girl, do you not, Louise?” “I?--oh! of course,” stammered Louise, pale as death. “And you are right, too, for the thing is amusing enough. The story, whether true or false, amused me, and so I remembered it and told it to you. Just imagine then, my good Louise, the mischief that such a melancholy would create in anybody’s brain,--a melancholy, I mean, of that kind. For my own part, I resolved to tell you the story; for if such a thing were to happen to either of _us_, it would be most essential to be assured of its truth; to-day it is a snare, to-morrow it would become a jest and mockery, the next day it would mean death itself.” La Vallière started again, and became, if possible, still paler.