It was, therefore, only now and then that the odd and menacing occurrence recurred to her memory with a depressing and startling effect. At such moments, it might be of weakness, the boding words, "Don't marry him; if you do you shall see me again," smote upon her heart like the voice of a specter, and she felt that chill, succeeded by vague and gloomy anxiety, which superstition ascribes to the passing presence of a spirit from the grave.
"I don't think you are happy, dear Lucille, or may be you are offended with me," said Julie St. Pierre, turning her soft blue eyes full upon her handsome companion, and taking her hand timidly between her own.
They were sitting together on a wild bank, shaded by a screen of brushwood, in the park. Lucille had been silent, abstracted, and, as it seemed, almost sullen during their walk, and poor little timid Julie, who cherished for her girlish friend that sort of devotion with which gentler and perhaps better natures are so often inspired by firmer wills, and more fiery tempers, was grieved and perplexed.
"Tell me, Lucille, are you angry with me?"
"I angry! no, indeed; and angry with you, my dear, dear little friend! I could not be, dear Julie, even were I to try."
And so they kissed heartily again and again.
"Then," said Julie, sitting down by her, and taking her hand more firmly in hers, and looking with such a loving interest as nothing could resist in her face, "you are unhappy. Why don't you tell me what it is that grieves you? I dare say I could give you very wise counsel, and, at all events, console you. At the convent the pensioners used all to come to me when they were in trouble, and, I assure you, I always gave them good advice."
"But I am not unhappy."
"Really?"
"No, indeed."