This morning, when she came to her drawing-desk, she held a volume of _De Moustier_ in her hand--“I have brought this,” said she, “for ou _bon Pere Directeur_ to read out to us.” “He has commissioned me,” said I, “to make his excuses; he is gone to visit a sick man on the other side of the mountain.” At this intelligence she blushed to the eyes; but suddenly recovering herself, she put the book into my hands, and said with a smile, “then you must officiate for him.” As soon as she was seated at the drawing-desk, I opened the book, and by chance at the beautiful description of the _Boudoir_: “J’amie une boudoir étroite qu’un demi jour eclaire, La mon cour est chez lui, le premier demi jour Fruit par la volupté, menage pour l’amour, La discrete amitié, veut aussi du mystère, Cluand de nos bons amis dans un lieu limitie, Le cercle peu nombreux près de nous rassemble Le sentiment, la paix, la franche liberté Preside en commun,” &c. I wish you could see this creature, when anything is said or read that comes home to her heart, or strikes in immediate unison with the exquisite tone of her feelings. Never sure was there a finer commentary than her looks and gestures passed on any work of interest which engages her attention. Before I had finished the perusal of this charming little fragment, the pencil had dropped from her fingers; and often she waved her beautiful head and smiled, and breathed a faint exclamation of delight; and when I laid down the book, she said, while she leaned her face on her clasped hands---- “And I too have a boudoir!--but even a _bou-doir_ may become a dreary solitude, except”----she paused; and I added, from the poem I had just read, “except that within its social little limits “La confidence ingénu rapproche deux amis.” Her eyes, half raised to mine, suddenly cast down, beamed a tender acquiescence to the sentiment. “But,” said I, “if the being worthy of sharing the bliss such an intercourse in such a place must confer, is yet to be found, is its hallowed circle inviolable to the intrusive footstep of an inferior, though perhaps not less ardent votarist?” “Since you have been here,” said she, “I have scarcely ever visited this once favourite retreat myself.” “Am I to take that as a compliment or otherwise?” said I. “Just as it is meant,” said she--“as a fact;” and she added, with an inadvertent simplicity, into which the ardour of her temper often betrays her--“I never can devote myself partially to anything--I am either all enthusiasm or all indifference.” Not for the world would I have made her _feel_ the full force of this avowal; but requested permission to visit this now deserted boudoir. “Certainly,” she replied--“it is a little closet in that ruined tower, which terminates the corridor in which your apartment lies.” “Then, I am privileged?” said I.