“I hope so,” returned the young girl, with a good deal of emotion; “but I can only say I trust Providence has preserved him. The terrible Revolution separated us, and since then we have had no certain information concerning him.”
“Such has been the lot of many a brother and sister, mademoiselle,” said the Lieutenant. “Madame Coulancourt must have told you that she lost a beloved son, and was forced to separate, also, from a daughter she dearly loved.”
“We heard of that event,” returned Mademoiselle de Tourville, and, in a voice tremulous with emotion, and letting her eyes, in which there were tears, rest upon the ground—“and how you, monsieur, though merely a youth, bravely protected madame’s little girl, and took her safely to England.”
“What is it,” said our hero, communing with his own thoughts, “that so strangely stirs up recollections of the past, and makes me feel so agitated when I hear the sound of this girl’s voice, and gaze into her beautiful eyes? Mabel was but a child, and yet those large eyes of hers spoke to the heart even then.”
“You seem very thoughtful, Monsieur de Tourville,” said Mademoiselle Plessis, with a curious smile upon her short, pretty lip. “Are you thinking of Madame de Coulancourt’s beautiful daughter, for a letter was read to us from a Madame Volney, which stated that Mademoiselle Mabel, from being only a ‘pale, thin, interesting child, had grown into a lovely young woman?’”
The young man started, and flushed in the cheek. “Pale, thin, interesting child!” Those were his own words! He looked at Mademoiselle Plessis, but she was quite demure; and her friend was gazing at the road. The sound of carriage-wheels caused them to turn round, and then they beheld the berlin coming towards them, to which two horses were harnessed.
“Ah! there is our voiture, and our cowardly postillion,” said Mademoiselle Plessis; “I do hate a coward: the handsomest man in the world would be contemptible in my eyes if he showed the white feather. But it is pardonable in our sex,” she added, with a gay laugh; “is it not, Monsieur de Tourville?”
“It becomes an attraction,” said the Lieutenant, gaily; “it ensures our sex the attention which we might not otherwise be favoured with.”
“You do us wrong there, monsieur,” said Mademoiselle de Tourville, in a low voice.
The carriage stopped beside them, and Monsieur Plessis jumped out.