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 ter to be, and they, I am confident, are ignorant of it?"

When she returned to the dressing-room, the Countess requested she would read to her; and thus employed, except at short intervals, when her ladyship made her pause to rest herself, she continued till dinner was served, at which the Countess was unable to preside; she grew better however in the evening, and again entered into conversation with Madeline.

The discourse turned upon the time she had passed at V; and the Countess now requested to hear a particular account of it. This was a request which Madeline, if she could, would gladly have declined obeying; for, in almost every amusement, almost every scene she had partaken of, or mixed in while there, de Sevignie was so principal an object, that to describe them without mentioning him, she feared would be scarcely possible; to mention him without emotion, she