In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia B. Edwards

"Undoubtedly--and you?"

"Yes, I have seen it; but not lately."

There was a brief pause.

"Madame Bouïsse thinks it so like yourself, mademoiselle," I said, timidly, "that it might almost be your portrait."

"I can believe it," she answered. "It is very like my mother."

Her voice faltered; and, still kneeling, she dropped her face in her hands, and wept silently.

Madame Bouïsse, in the meantime, had gone into my bedchamber, where she was sweeping and singing to herself with the door three parts closed, believing, no doubt, that she was affording me the opportunity to make a formal declaration.

"Alas! mademoiselle," I said, hesitatingly, "I little thought..."

She rose, dashed the tears aside, and, holding out her hand to me, said, kindly--

"It is no fault of yours, fellow-student, if I remind you of the portrait, or if the portrait reminds me of one whom it resembles still more nearly. I am sorry to have troubled your kind heart with my griefs. It is not often that they rise to the surface."