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32 whirl her, that Valerie's great dark eyes ached with the intensity of their wakefulness, or that she declined, both sharply and briefly, to decide upon the merits of the pink paduasoy, or the somewhat frayed brocade, or to give directions for the conveyance of her canary-birds. Poor old Marie, in fact, had suffered so many and such severe repressions, that it was in a silence most unwonted that she entered the chamber after her brief interview with the baron, and laid his note upon the lap of her young mistress, still seated in the deep fauteuil, still staring fixedly at the blackness beyond her window. Valerie, half-eagerly, half-angrily, caught up the paper, and approached the candles burning upon the dressing-table: its contents were brief, and to her fancy somewhat peremptory:—

"I must see you before the morning, that you may reply distinctly to my offer of hand and heart and name, before you are called upon to answer a similar offer from my brother. I shall be under your window as the clock strikes midnight, and hope you will be there ready to answer simply and truthfully the question I have asked, and ask again: Will you be mine, Valerie, my wife, and my beloved? It is the most solemn utterance of my whole life: do not play with it, do not trifle with your reply. FRANÇOIS."

As the young girl read these words, a blush, a smile, a frown, passed in rapid alternation across her face; and then she stood meditating, folding and re-folding the paper between her fingers, and finally holding it in the flame of the candle until it fell a floating cinder upon the polished floor.