No. 133.]

ROMANCE AND REASON.

"REALLY, my dear," said Madame de Montsallier, "really I cannot comprehend your sorrows. You ought to be the happiest person in the world."

"I do not deny my happiness," replied Elise, sinking back in her fauteul with an abstracted air.

"But you enjoy nothing. You pass all your days in apathy, a sort of half sleep, from which nothing can arouse you. I could not live so for four-and-twenty hours."

"I can assure you, my dear cousin, I am not unhappy." "With what admirable coolness you make that declaration ! I never heard anything like it," cried Madame de Montsallier, getting almost angry. "Eh! bon Dieu! tuly I believe you. The advantages you possess, would make four reasonable women happy, if divided among them. To begin, you are young." "Ah!" sighed Elise, "and you think that to reckon only twenty years, is all that is necessary to be happy!"

"Yes, I do," replied Madame de Montsallier, quickly; "but unhappily that blessing is never understood till it is lost. But that is not all, Elise; you are pretty, very pretty."

"but what

"I know it," replied she, in an indifferent tone; advantage is it to me, since I am not a coquette ?" "Well! we ought always to be glad to be able to give pleasure, even if it be only to oneself, when one looks in the glass. Then you are rich, independent."

"And do you believe that this fortune, this independence, are also infallible means of securing happiness?" interrupted Elise, with an air of melancholy disdain. "In my eyes the delights of vanity and luxury afford no satisfaction, and this so-muchenvied liberty is but a miserable isolation."

"It rests with yourself to renounce it," cried Madame de Montsallier.

"Yes," said Elise with a sigh, " by marrying. Do not speak of it, I beg of you, my dear cousin."

The conversation ended here, and Madame de Montsallier, to conceal that kind of pet and impatience which the wearisome melancholy of Elise always created, began to run over the pages of a book which lay open on the table. There was but little sympathy between the dispositions of the two cousins, but yet they loved one another warmly. The Comtesse de St. Montsallier was lively, good-humoured, and frivolous; she had been a little of a coquette, and her chief care now was to ward off the hand of time, and preserve as long as possible the relics of her beauty.

Mademoiselle Elise de Saurens possessed both beauty and fortune; she had been left an orphan in her infancy, and had been brought up by a grandmother, who had indulged her every fancy. She was in fact satinted with pleasure; the world had lost all interest with her, and she sought that excitement in the pages of the poet and the novelist, which she no longer found in reality. Her over-fond grandmother died when Elise was about twenty, and she was now residing with her cousin, who acted as her chaperon. From the first, Madame de Montsallier determined in her own mind, that marriage would be the best remedy for the increasing apathy of her cousin ; but she took her measures very descreetly, and was very careful not to

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compromise the aspirant whom she favoured. She had fixed upon her brother-in-law, the Marquis de St. Nizier. Mademoiselle de Saurens had known him from her infancy; he was naturally placed on a footing of intimacy with her, and if he had had to do with a person at all like the rest of the world, he would have stood an excellent chance of success. James de St. Nizier was young, accomplished, handsome, and of elegant manners. But Elise had met many such already; besides, she was accustomed to his presence, and all his redoubled cares and attentions produced no visible effect. She had, as she said, the greatest possible esteem for him, but she regarded neither his presence nor his absence. This complete indifference was not without effect; St. Nizier, who at first had agreed to his sister's scheme with indifference, became really and seriously in love, when he found it probable that he should not succeed. He, however, was too prudent to hazard a refusal, and, in order to maintain the advantage he possessed, carefully confined himself within the limits of friendship.

Such was the position of the personages of our story, on the day when Madame de Montsallier suffered her impatience at the apathetic melancholy of her cousin to manifest itself.

"Well," said she at length, still turning over De Bourdon's book, "well, the bathing season has commenced everywhere. Where shall we go, Elise?"

"Have not you been turning over that book these two days, for the very purpose of deciding that question?" said Elise, faintly smiling.

"Yes; but as I am absolutely determined to carry you off, I mut find out what will suit you. You tell me that all the world is at Plombières, Vichy, Causerets, Bagnères; and for my own part, I do not desire to meet much company at the baths, since I go there only for my health."

"Well then, let us seek some fountain, where there is not such a concourse of fashion as to renew a Paris life; some place where we may pass a month free from the persecution of the pleasures of the great world, and the inconveniences of a resi dence from home."

Madame de Montsallier shook her head, and returned to the "Guide to the Mineral Waters." "Excellent! cried she at length; "I have found such a place, my dear. Shall we go to Aix? Not to Aix in Savoy, but to Aix in Provence."

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Yes, the doctor assures us that these waters contain a principle which restores the freshness and beauty of youth; which renders the skin exquisitely white, elastic, and firm.”

"But, my fair cousin," interrupted Elise, "your complexion stands in no need of such cosmetics.

"My dear child, this is an affair of precaution; I wish to make use of the water of Aix, to prevent future wrinkles, and in spite of your twenty years, you must do the same."

"Elise passed her hand over her white and polished forehead, already marked with a slight indentation between the eye-brows. "Wrinkles!" said she, with a sigh and a smile; "See, I have one already."