Moderate your joy, my daughter; if it please Heaven to decide against your hope in this matter your grief will be more easily conquered." "Oh, no, father!" stammered Lenora; "God will grant my prayer; I feel it in my heart.

Don't be astonished, father, that I am full of joy, for I think I see Gustave speaking to his uncle.

I hear what he says, and Monsieur Denecker's replies; I see him embrace Gustave and give his consent! Who can doubt, father, that I ought to hope, when I know that Monsieur Denecker loved me and was always kind ?" "Would you be very happy, Lenora," asked De Vlierbeck, with a smile, "if Gustave were betrothed to you ?" "Never to leave him!" cried Lenora,--"to love him,--to be the happiness of his life, his consolation, his joy,--to enliven the solitude of Grinselhof by our love!--ah! that, father, would be delight indeed; for then there would be two of us to contribute to the pleasures of your life! Gustave would have more skill than I to chase away the grief that sometimes clouds your brow; you could walk, talk, or hunt with him; he would venerate and love you as a son and watch you with the tenderest care; his only thought on earth would be to make you happy, because he knows that your happiness is mine; and I--I, father, will recompense him for his devotion by the gratitude of my heart, and love.

Oh, yes, dear father! we shall live together in a paradise of contentment!" "Ingenuous girl!" exclaimed De Vlierbeck, with a sigh; "may the Lord hear your prayer! But the world, my child, is governed by laws and customs of which you are altogether ignorant.

A wife must follow her husband wherever he goes.