Years passed away, and in the resumed tranquillity of Lucille's life the brilliant apparition of St. Amand appeared as something dreamt of, not seen. The star of Napoleon had risen above the horizon; the romance of his early career had commenced; and the campaign of Egypt had been the herald of those brilliant and meteoric successes which flashed forth from the gloom of the Revolution of France. You are aware, dear Gertrude, how many in the French as well as the English troops returned home from Egypt, blinded with the ophthalmia of that arid soil. Some of the young men in Lucille's town, who had joined Napoleon's army, came back, darkened by that fearful affliction, and Lucille's alms, and Lucille's aid, and Lucille's sweet voice were ever at hand for those poor sufferers, whose common misfortune touched so thrilling a cord of her heart. Her father was now dead, and she had only her mother to cheer amid the ills of age. As one evening they sat at work together, Madame Le Tisseur said, after a pause-- "I wish, dear Lucille, thou couldst be persuaded to marry Justin; he loves thee well, and now that thou art yet young, and hast many years before thee, thou shouldst remember that when I die thou wilt be alone." "Ah cease, dearest mother, I never can marry now, and as for love--once taught in the bitter school in which I have learned the knowledge of myself--I cannot be deceived again." "My Lucille, you do not know yourself; never was {62} woman loved, if Justin does not love you; and never did lover feel with more real warmth how worthily he loved." And this was true; and not of Justin alone, for Lucille's modest virtues, her kindly temper, and a certain undulating and feminine grace, which accompanied all her movements, had secured her as many conquests as if she had been beautiful. She had rejected all offers of marriage with a shudder; without even the throb of a flattered vanity. One memory, sadder, was also dearer to her than all things; and something sacred in its recollections made her deem it even a crime to think of effacing the past by a new affection. "I believe," continued Madame Le Tisseur, angrily, "that thou still thinkest fondly of him from whom only in the world thou couldst have experienced ingratitude." "Nay mother," said Lucille, with a blush and a slight sigh, "Eugene is married to another." While thus conversing, they heard a gentle and timid knock at the door--the latch was lifted. "This" said the rough voice of a commissaire of the town--"this, monsieur, is the house of _Madame Le Tisseur_, and--_voila mademoiselle!_" A tall figure, with a shade over his eyes, and wrapped in a long military cloak, stood in the room. A thrill shot across Lucille's heart. He stretched out his arms; "Lucille," said that melancholy voice, which had made the music of her first youth--"where art thou, Lucille; alas! she does not recognize St. Amand."