And trust me not at all or all in all.--TENNYSON

So extensive was the Louvre, so widely separated the different

suites of apartments, that Diane and Eustacie had not met after the

pall-mall party till they sat opposite to their several queens in

the coach driving through the woods, the elder cousin curiously

watching the eyes of the younger, so wistfully gazing at the

window, and now and then rapidly winking as though to force back a

rebellious tear.

The cousins had been bred up together in the convent at Bellaise,

and had only been separated by Diane's having been brought to court

two years sooner than Eustacie. They had always been on very

kindly, affectionate terms; Diane treating her little cousin with

the patronage of an elder sister, and greatly contributing to

shield her from the temptations of the court.

The elder cousin was so much the more handsome, brilliant, and admired, that no notion

of rivalry had crossed her mind; and Eustacie's inheritance was

regarded by her as reserved for her brother, and the means of

aggradizement an prosperity for herself and her father. She looked

upon the child as a sort of piece of property of the family, to be

guarded and watched over for her brother; and when she had first

discovered the error that the young baron was making between the

two daughters of the house, it was partly in kindness to Eustacie,

partly to carry out her father's plans, and partly from her own

pleasure in conversing with anything so candid and fresh as

Berenger, that she had maintained the delusion.

Her father believed himself to have placed Berenger so entirely in the

background, that he would hardly be at court long enough to

discover the imposition; and Diane was not devoid of a strong hope

of winning his affection and bending his will so as to induce him

to become her husband, and become a French courtier for her sake--a

wild dream, but a better castle in the air than she had ever yet

indulged in.

This arrangement was, however, disconcerted by the King's passion

for Sidney's society, which brought young Ribaumont also to court;

and at the time of the mischievous introduction by Madame

Marguerite, Diane had perceived that the mistake would soon be

found out, and that she should no longer be able to amuse herself

with the fresh-coloured, open-faced boy who was unlike all her

former acquaintance; but the magnetism that shows a woman when she

produces an effect had been experienced by her, and she had been

sure that a few efforts more would warm and mould the wax in her

fingers.




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