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 "Oh, my father (exclaimed Madeline, unspeakably affected by his words), every exertion you desire I will make."

Ever taught to consider her promise as sacred, she no longer gave way to her grief, and soon recovered, though not her cheerfulness, her composure.

The death of Madame D'Alembert caused the doors of the castle to be again barred against company, and an almost uninterrupted stillness once more reigned within it. Madeline rather rejoiced at than regretted the total solitude in which she lived; the spirits, the hopes, the expectations which would once have inclined her to gaiety, were fled, and she no longer wished to see or to be seen.

Nor did her father appear less pleased with his seclusion from the world; a deeper gloom than Madeline had ever before observed upon it, now almost continually clouded his