Julienne only replied, "Beautiful! now will we go up!"--being less capable than Linda of swift transitions. When they saw, above, the tranquil, bright, contented Idoine again,--always steadfastly and serenely active,--undisturbed by regret or expectation,--wearing only the harvest-wreath of action, never the flowery bridal-wreath,--so many white blossoms at her feet, lying ungathered for garland or festoon,--her pure, radiant soul like a clear, bright tone, which bears the charm of its melody through moist, cloudy air, undisturbed and unbroken,--then did she feel that Idoine was connected with her by a more sisterly tie than Linda. The former was to her an _ideal_ and a constellation in her heaven above her; the latter, an unknown one, which sparkles far off and invisible in a second hemisphere of the heavens; but in her the womanly power of loving on, almost even to the degree of hatred, worked on more intensely than in any one woman, and she remained constant to her old friend. Idoine was one of those female souls which resemble the moon; pale and faint must she stand in the magnificent evening sky, which splendor and burning clouds adorn, and not a single shadow can she dislodge on the earth, and mounts with invisible rays, but all other light grows pale, and hers grows out of the shadow, until at last her supernatural radiance invests the earthly night, and transforms it into a second world, and all hearts love her, weeping, and the nightingales sing in her beams. All was now settled and ended. Linda kept herself reserved, and merely from respect to the law of social propriety, which she never overstepped. Idoine, guessing a change, softly drew herself back out of her former familiarity. Early in the dark morning they parted, but Julienne told not her friend, how, when they left each other, she had seen Idoine turn away with wet eyes. 126. CYCLE. Albano had, during Linda's absence, received from Roquairol a request not to travel long just now, so that he might in a few days see his tragedy of "The Tragedian." Gaspard, whom he found displeased at Linda's shyness of marriage, gave him a singular note on a card for Linda, containing nothing but this, from her invisible father:-- "I approve thy love. I wait for thee to seal it, that I may at length embrace my daughter. "The Future One."