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away, and hide her face from the rude gaze of the spectators.
There was something so unaffected in the effort she made to
escape observation, that it could but have sprung from natural
and innate modesty alone.

As the six men who escorted the unhappy train were together in
the room, I took the chief one aside and asked for information
respecting this beautiful girl. All that he could supply was of
the most vague kind. "We brought her," he said, "from the
Hospital, by order of the lieutenant-general of police. There is
no reason to suppose that she was shut up there for good conduct.

"I have questioned her often upon the road; but she persists in
refusing even to answer me. Yet, although I received no orders
to make any distinction between her and the others, I cannot help
treating her differently, for she seems to me somewhat superior
to her companions. Yonder is a young man," continued the
archer, "who can tell you, better than I can, the cause of her
misfortunes. He has followed her from Paris, and has scarcely dried
his tears for a single moment. He must be either her brother or
her lover."

I turned towards the corner of the room, where this young man was
seated. He seemed buried in a profound reverie. Never did I
behold a more affecting picture of grief. He was plainly
dressed; but one may discover at the first glance a man of birth
and education. As I approached him he rose, and there was so
refined and noble an expression in his eyes, in his whole
countenance, in his every movement, that I felt an involuntary
impulse to render him any service in my power. "I am unwilling
to intrude upon your sorrows," said I, taking a seat beside him,
"but you will, perhaps, gratify the desire I feel to learn
something about that beautiful girl, who seems little formed by
nature for the miserable condition in which she is placed."

He answered me candidly, that he could not communicate her
history without making himself known, and that he had urgent
reasons for preserving his own incognito. "I may, however, tell
you this much, for it is no longer a secret to these wretches,"
he continued, pointing to the guards,--"that I adore her with a
passion so ardent and absorbing as to render me the most unhappy
of human beings. I tried every means at Paris to effect her
liberty. Petitions, artifice, force--all failed. Go where
she may, I have resolved to follow her--to the extremity of the
world. I shall embark with her and cross to America.

"But think of the brutal inhumanity of these cowardly ruffians,"
he added, speaking of the guards; "they will not allow me to
approach her! I had planned an open attack upon them some
leagues from Paris; having secured, as I thought, the aid of four
men, who for a considerable sum hired me their services. The
traitors, however, left me to execute my scheme single-handed,
and decamped with my money. The impossibility of success made me
of course abandon the attempt, I then implored of the guards

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