It is uncertain what answer Fleurange was about to make Clement, who was less candid than usual, and therefore provoking, but at that instant she noticed a sprig of myrtle in the button-hole of his coat. “What! you with myrtle?” she said. “I thought it was only worn by young maidens on such a day.” Clement blushed, and snatched the myrtle from his coat: “It is yours, Gabrielle. Pardon me. I saw it fall from your girdle, and picked it up.” “Mine? Indeed!” “Yes; here, take it, unless,” said he, hesitating a little--“unless you will consent to give it back to me.” “Very willingly, Clement; keep it as a gift from me. It is a good omen, they say, predicting a fair bride when your turn comes.” Clement replaced the myrtle in his coat, and gravely said: “That day will never come for me; no, never!” “Never; no, never! Oh! how strange!” cried Fleurange, in a tone that surprised Clement. “What is it?” “Nothing.” What struck her as strange was that Clement, _à propos_ of this piece of myrtle, had, without being aware of it, uttered precisely the same words she herself had said some hours before. On the whole, this _soirée_ she found so pleasant at its commencement, ended in a painful manner. She returned to her chamber less cheerful than she left it, but with the satisfaction of feeling she had had no difficulty throughout the day in banishing from her mind the fantastic image she had formed the evening before of Count George. IX. More than a fortnight had elapsed. Hilda was married and gone from the paternal roof. Clara and her husband were on their way to Italy, where they intended to remain till spring. Those who remained in the Old Mansion were suffering from the reaction that always follows the confusion and agitation of any event however pleasant--a reaction always depressing even when there is no real sadness in the heart. But this was not exactly the case with Fleurange. Her cousins were both married and happy. She loved them too sincerely not to rejoice at this, but it was not the less true that the house seemed to have grown more spacious, the table around which they gathered enlarged, the library immense, and the garden deserted. The least to be pitied was Fritz, who still had his brother, and was not so much affected by the change; but little Frida mourned for her sisters, and clung more than ever to Fleurange, whose talent for amusing and diverting children was again brought into exercise. Fleurange, on her part, greatly appreciated this distraction as a benefit. The child seldom left her cousin’s room, and they became almost inseparable. One day, while there as usual, Fleurange singing a long ballad in a low tone, and Frida listening with her head against her cousin’s shoulder, a knock at the door made them both start. And yet it was but a slight rap, that gave no cause for the alarm with which she put the child down and hastily ran to the door. She found her kind of presentiment justified.