even the small appearance they do make. I wonder when I shall go back to old France again! I thought when I left it that six months would be quite enough of this; but I really do not think it so bad after all, and now that I have got this staff appointment, why, I suppose I must make up my mind to stay, at all events for next year's campaign." So Isidore resigned himself to his fate; nay, when it came to his turn to have the option of carrying despatches to the king in person, he actually gave up the privilege in favour of a brother officer, who had not got over his old longing to spend New Year's Day in Paris. It is not for us to say how far Colonel de Beaujardin may have been influenced by the private knowledge that General Montcalm's head-quarters were to be transferred for a time to Quebec. Such, however, was the case, and Isidore spent his New Year's Day under the hospitable roof of Madame de Rocheval. The first two or three days that Isidore passed at Quebec were singularly happy ones. Some months had now elapsed since the death of Captain Lacroix, and Marguerite had regained much of her natural cheerfulness, which seemed all the more bright and winning for the shade of melancholy that occasionally came over her at the thought of her lonely and dependent position in the world. Isidore had few acquaintances there, and did not care to add to their number; at first his visits at the house of Madame de Rocheval were as frequent as he could decorously make them. As it happened, Marguerite was more than an ordinary proficient on the harpsichord, whilst the young marquis, who had a singularly fine voice, and had had the advantage of the best masters that Paris could boast of, sang with a taste and feeling seldom met with; and this afforded a fair excuse for prolonging his visits beyond the ordinary limits. It is like enough that, notwithstanding the vast and absolutely impassable distance which their respective positions would have placed between them in Old France, the most noble and wealthy young Marquis de Beaujardin would have offered his hand to the penniless orphan of a man who could not write the "de" of gentle birth before his name: one untoward circumstance alone, perhaps, prevented this; Madame de Rocheval, who was very fond of Marguerite, could not help feeling what a masterly stroke it would be on her part if she could but catch for her a husband of such rank and fortune, so she at once began to do all she could to bring about the hoped-for result. Unfortunately for all parties, madame's zeal outran her usual discretion, and no sooner did poor Marguerite perceive, or think that she perceived, the covert designs of her friend than her sensitive delicacy recoiled from doing anything that might seem like aiding or abetting such a scheme. She constrained herself to assume a cold and formal manner, so unnatural to her that Isidore, as men are apt enough to do, grew vexed and annoyed at a treatment which he knew was