It chills her with its airy stream,
O cold, O careless midnight blast!
It wakes her as her fevered dream
Hath skimmed the sweetness of the past.

She stirs not yet. The night has drawn
Its silent stream of stars away,
And now the infant streaks of dawn
Begin to prophesy the day.

She stirs not yet. Within her eye
The half-crushed tear-drop lingers still;
She stirs not, and the smothered sigh
Breaks wave-like on the rock of will.

O heart that will unheeding prove,
O heart that must unheeded break,
How strong the hope, how deep the love,
That burn for faithless folly's sake!

THE GREY WOMAN.
IN THREE PORTIONS. PORTION THE SECOND.

A NORMAN woman, Amante by name, was sent
to Les Rochers by the Paris milliner, to become
my maid. She was tall and handsome, though
upwards of forty, and somewhat gaunt. But, on
first seeing her, I liked her; she was neither
rude nor familiar in her manners, and had a
pleasant look of straightforwardness about her
that I had missed in all the inhabitants of
the chateau, and had foolishly set down in
my own mind as a national want. Amante
was directed by M. de la Tourelle to sit in my
boudoir, and to be always within call. He also
gave her many instructions as to her duties in
matters which, perhaps, strictly belonged to my
department of management. But I was young
and inexperienced, and thankful to be spared
any responsibility.

I dare say it was true what M. de la Tourelle
said— before many weeks had elapsed— that, for
a great lady, a lady of a castle, I became sadly too
familiar with my Norman waiting-maid. But you
know that by birth we were not very far apart
in rank: Amante was the daughter of a Norman
farmer, I of a German miller; and, besides, that
my life was so lonely! It almost seemed as if
I could not please my husband. He had written
for some one capable of being my companion at
times, and now he was jealous of my free regard
for her— angry because I could sometimes laugh
at her original tunes and amusing proverbs,
while when with him I was too much frightened
to smile.

From time to time families from a distance of
some leagues drove through the bad roads in
their heavy carriages to pay us a visit, and there
was an occasional talk of our going to Paris
when public affairs should be a little more
settled. These little events and plans were the
only variations in my life for the first twelve
months, if I except the alternations in M. de la
Tourelle's temper, his unreasonable anger, and
his passionate fondness.

Perhaps one of the reasons that made me
take pleasure and comfort in Amante's society
was, that whereas I was afraid of everybody
(I do not think I was half as much afraid of
things as of persons), Amante feared no one.
She would quietly beard Lefebvre, and he
respected her all the more for it; she had a knack
of putting questions to M. de la Tourelle, which
respectfully informed him that she had detected
the weak point, but forbore to press him too
closely upon it out of deference to his position
as her master. And with all her shrewdness to
others, she had quite tender ways with me; all
the more so at this time because she knew,
what I had not yet ventured to tell M. de la
Tourelle, that by-and-by I might become a
mother, that wonderful object of mysterious
interest to single women, who no longer hope
to enjoy such blessedness themselves.

It was once more autumn; late in October.
But I was reconciled to my habitation; the
walls of the new part of the building no longer
looked bare and desolate; the debris had been
so far cleared away by M. de la Tourelle's desire
as to make me a little flower-garden, in which I
tried to cultivate those plants that I remembered
as growing at home. Amaute and I had
moved the furniture in the rooms, and adjusted
it to our liking; my husband had ordered many
an article from time to time that he thought
would give me pleasure, and I was becoming
tame to my apparent imprisonment in a certain
part of the great building, the whole of which I
had never yet explored. It was October, as I
say, once more. The days were lovely, though
short in duration, and M. de la Tourelle had
occasion, so he said, to go to that distant estate
the superintendence of which so frequently took
him away from home. He took Lefebvre with
him, and possibly some more of the lacqueys;
he often did. And my spirits rose a little at
the thought of his absence; and then the new
sensation that he was the father of my unborn
babe came over me, and I tried to invest him
with this fresh character. I tried to believe
that it was his passionate love for me that made
him so jealous and tyrannical, imposing, as he
did, restrictions on my very intercourse with
my dear father, from whom I was so entirely
separated, as far as personal intercourse was
concerned.

I had, it is true, let myself go into a sorrowful
review of all the troubles which lay hidden
beneath the seeming luxury of my life. I knew
that no one cared for me except my husband
and Amante; for it was clear enough to see that
I, as his wife, and also as a parvenue, was not
popular among the few neighbours who
surrounded us; and as for the servants, the women
were all hard and impudent-looking, treating
me with a semblance of respect that had more of
mockery than reality in it, while the men had a
lurking kind of fierceness about them, some-
times displayed even to M. de la Tourelle, who
on his part, it must be confessed, was often
severe even to cruelty in. his management of
them. My husband loved me, I said to myself,
but I said it almost in the form of a question.
His love was shown fitfully, and more in ways
calculated to please himself than to please me.
I felt that for no wish of mine would he deviate