While Maurice was applying himself to study with a zeal and sense of enjoyment wholly new to him, Bertha was passing through various stages of ennui, and testing the patience, or rather the digestive powers, of that sorely discomforted bon vivant, her uncle. Day after day she grew more capricious, unreasonable, unmanageable.

The distressed marquis came to the conclusion that his disturbed animal economy could only be restored by an amicable separation from his niece. But in vain he bestowed his smiles, and his dinners, upon the multitudinous suitors by whom the young heiress was besieged; her autocratic decree condemned him to the cruel duty of closing the sumptuous repasts by the dessert of a dismissal to each lover in turn, without extending to any the faintest hope that his sentence might be reversed. Finally the marquis became a confirmed dyspeptic; the joy of his life was quenched when his appetite failed, beyond the resuscitating influence of absenthe and other fashionable stimulants; the glory of his festive board had departed, and he was haunted by the conviction that the unnatural conduct of his niece would bring his whitening hairs, through sorrow and indigestion, to the grave.

A small but dearly prized respite from his trials was granted him when Bertha paid her yearly visit, of four months, to her relatives in Brittany. Her stay, however, was never extended beyond the wonted period, for she found her sojourn at the ChÂteau de Gramont unmitigatedly dull. The reception of letters from Maurice, addressed to his father, alone relieved the tediousness of the hours; but these welcome messengers were infrequent, brief, and somewhat cold. They left Bertha so unsatisfied that before the close of the first year of her cousin's absence she opened a correspondence with him herself. The initiative letter was suggested by pleasant tidings, which she hastened to send. It was written immediately after the eighteenth anniversary of her birthday, and communicated the agreeable intelligence that upon that day she had again received a token of remembrance from their beloved Madeleine.

A yearly gift, bearing the impress of those "fairy fingers," was the only sign Madeleine gave that she lived and remembered.

Three years passed on, and upon each birthday, wherever Bertha chanced to be, in Bordeaux, in Paris, in Brittany, a small parcel was mysteriously left with the concierge of the house where she was residing. The package was always addressed in Madeleine's handwriting, and contained some exquisite piece of needle-work, but no letter, and it bore no mark of post or express. It was invariably delivered by private hand. At least, it rendered certain the consolatory facts, not only that Bertha was unforgotten, but that Madeleine was cognizant of all her movements.

No sooner had the heiress reached her majority than she prepared to carry into execution a plan which for a long period had been silently forming itself in her mind. Her earnest desire to visit America had been secretly, but systematically, strengthened by Count Tristan. He well knew that the Marquis de Merrivale would never be induced to become her escort; and, what was more likely than that she should seek the countenance and protection of her other relatives?

He played his cards so adroitly that Bertha, without once suspecting his machinations, wrote to him, on the very day that closed her twenty-first year, and invited the countess and himself to accompany her upon an American tour. She took care delicately to make a stipulation that the expenses of the projected trip should devolve upon her. The count concealed his exultation under an air of well-acted reluctance, and required much persuasion before he could be taught to look with favor upon this unexpected and sudden proposition.

There was no simulation in the dismay, the horror with which Bertha's proposal was greeted by the countess. How was she to breathe in a land where hereditary claims to rank were unknown?—where distinctions of brains not blood were alone recognized?—where a man might rise to the highest position, as ruler of the realm, though his father chanced to be a mechanic, and his grandfather's existence was untraceable? For a time, Bertha's entreaties and the count's representations were equally impotent; the countess was inexorable. But her son was not to be baffled; he found an avenue through which her heart could be reached, and her resolution undermined. It lay in the suggestion that Bertha's strong inclination to visit America sprang from a desire again to behold Maurice, and that the result of their meeting, after so long a separation, might be in the highest degree felicitous. Bertha, he urged, during the absence of Maurice, had probably learned that he was dearer to her than she imagined; and, if Maurice had reason to believe that she crossed the ocean for the sake of rejoining him, could he remain insensible to such a proof of devotion? The countess bowed her haughty head to a sacrifice which vitally compromised her dignity.

One of the objects of the count's visit to America was to learn something further of the railroad company with which he was connected. For a time its operations had been suspended, owing to a financial crisis,—a sort of periodical American epidemic that, like cholera, sweeps over the land at intervals, making frightful ravage for a season, and departing as mysteriously as it came. The elastic nation, never long prostrate, had risen out of temporary difficulties and depression with a sudden bound, and prosperity walked in the very footprints of the late destroyer.

Mr. Hilson had lately announced to Count Tristan that the railway association was again in full activity, and that the mooted question of the direction which the road ought to take would, ere long, be decided. He added that, according to his judgment, the left road was indubitably the more desirable. Should that road be chosen, it would pass through the property owned by the Viscount de Gramont. We have already alluded to the immense difference in the value of the estate which the advent of the railroad would insure.

Bertha had no difficulty in obtaining the Marquis de Merrivale's approval of the contemplated trip.

Early in the spring the party embarked upon one of those superb steamers that sweep across the ocean like floating cities, pulsating with multitudinous life.

The passage was so smooth that Bertha thoroughly enjoyed the strange, new existence, and found such ever-varying beauty in the gorgeous sunsets, and the resplendent moonlight, that she even forsook her berth to see "Aurora draw aside her crimson curtain of the dawn;" in short she was in an appreciating mood throughout the voyage, and her happy state allowed her to ignore all the dÉsagremÉns of the sea. The countess also, as she sat upon the deck in a comfortable arm-chair,—which she occupied as though it were a throne, and received the homage of fellow-passengers, who were obviously struck and awed by her majestic deportment,—pronounced the transit more endurable than she anticipated.

Maurice had gone to New York to welcome the voyagers, and when the steamer neared the land he was the first person who bounded upon the deck. Bertha caught sight of him, and as she sprang forward and threw herself into his arms, weeping with joy and heartily returning his warm embrace, the countess and her son exchanged looks of exultation which showed that they had not reflected upon the vast distinction between the frank greeting of brother and sister, and the meeting of possible lovers.

A slight, irrepressible shadow passed over the beaming countenance of Maurice as he turned from Bertha to welcome his father and grandmother. The cloud flitted by in an instant, and only betrayed that the past was unforgotten; while the look of manly confidence and self-possession, by which it was replaced, told that the present and the future could not be subject to by-gone storms.

After the first salutations were over, the countess scanned Maurice from head to foot, to note what changes had been wrought by his residence in a country which she held in such supreme contempt. The slight curl and quivering of the lip, which accompanied her survey, bespoke that it was not entirely satisfactory. In the first place, his apparel displeased her. The care that he had once bestowed upon his toilet betrayed a slight leaning to the side of foppishness; now, his attire gave him the air of a man of business, rather than of mere pleasure. His bearing was more confident than in former days, his movements more rapid, his tone more animated and decisive, his whole manner more energetic. His face was slightly careworn, his brow had lost something of its unruffled smoothness, and the fresh carnation tints had faded out of his complexion; but the wealth of expression his countenance had gained might atone for heavier losses. In repose, his features wore a shade of habitual sadness; but that disappeared the moment he spoke, and was rather an air of reflection than of sorrow. Indeed, all gloom had vanished from his spirit soon after his arrival in America. The hope-inspiring ministry of Ronald's mother, first and engrossing study, and ceaseless occupation next, had effectually medicined his growing melancholy. Maurice had not felt himself a homeless exile during his four years' sojourn in a foreign land. The ChÂteau de Gramont was less dear to him than the quiet, unpretentious, but affection-brightened home where he was always welcomed as a son.

When his stately grandmother, after so long a separation, once more appeared before him, the cold dignity, repelling hardness, and self-venerating pride of her demeanor struck him all the more painfully because it conjured up, in contrast, a vision of soft humility,—the gentle strength, the intellectual power, the refined tenderness of the lovely woman who realized his ideal of maternity.

It almost seemed as though the countess had some internal perception that Maurice weighed her in the balance of a new judgment, and found her wanting; for she shrank beneath his gaze, and turned from him with a sense of sickening disappointment.

Bertha, while she was struck by the marked alteration in Maurice, noted the change with undisguised admiration. To her eyes he was a thousand times more attractive than ever, and she told him so without a shadow of bashful hesitation.

The young French demoiselle had made up her mind to be charmed with America, and little is required to satisfy those who are determined to be pleased. How much of her enthusiasm was legitimately excited, and how much was the spontaneous kindling of her own bright spirit, we will not attempt to describe. Be it enough to say, that she frequently declared her most sanguine expectations were far surpassed.

The countess, on the other hand, looked through a distorted medium which filled her with disgust. She was horrified at the publicity of hotel-life in New York. She could not tolerate the careless ease of the persons with whom she was thrown into accidental communication,—the confidence with which the very servants ventured to accost her. The absence of awe, the lack of head and knee bending, in her august presence, appeared a tacit insult. She was puzzled to reconcile the freedom with which she was constantly addressed with the great deference paid to her sex. While her rank was almost ignored, the mere fact of being a woman commanded an amount of consideration unsurpassed by the veneration paid to titled womanhood in her own land. Nothing, however, shocked her more than the liberty accorded to young American maidens. She found it impossible to comprehend that, educated as responsible beings, the strict surveillance over girlhood's most trivial actions, which is deemed indispensable in France, ceased to be a matter of necessity in America.

Immediately upon his arrival in New York the count had placed himself in communication with Mr. Hilson; and, a few days later, received a letter informing him that at a recent meeting of the managers of the —— —— Railway Association a committee of nine had been chosen to decide upon the most suitable direction of the new road. The committee was to give in its decision at the end of a fortnight. Mr. Hilson regretted to add that he feared the majority were in favor of the road to the right. He concluded by suggesting that it might be well for the count to visit Washington, and exert over members of the committee any influence, that he could command, to secure a majority of votes in favor of the road which would prove so advantageous to his son's property.

The count resolved to act at once upon Mr. Hilson's suggestion. When he proposed to his mother and Bertha that they should start the very next day for Washington, the countess, for the first time since her arrival, expressed herself gratified. At the seat of government she would meet the French ambassador and his wife (the Marquis and Marchioness de Fleury), and possibly, in the circle in which they moved, she might encounter foreigners with whom it would not be repugnant to associate.

Bertha heard Count Tristan's announcement with such bright gleamings of the eyes, such happy flushings of the cheeks, that the sudden radiance which overspread her countenance set Maurice wondering over the emotions that caused her to so warmly welcome this unanticipated change of locality.

The revery into which he had fallen was broken by his father. The count launched into a discussion upon the management of property in America, then glided into the subject of the Maryland estate, and finally suggested that it would be advisable for his son to grant him a power of attorney which would place him in a situation to act as his representative in any case of emergency. Maurice unhesitatingly expressed his willingness to comply with this request, and the legal instrument was drawn up without delay. Upon receiving the document, the count assured his son that there was no probability that the power would be required, and voluntarily pledged himself not to make use of it without apprising Maurice.

Count Tristan's words and intentions were wholly at variance. His affairs in Brittany had become so frightfully entangled, that it was absolutely necessary for him to be able to command a considerable sum to redeem his credit; and he saw no means by which this desirable end could be obtained, except by a mortgage upon his son's estate. One of his strongest motives in visiting America was to effect this purpose; but he earnestly desired to conceal from Maurice the step he projected, trusting to his own skill in under-hand management for the smoothing away of difficulties before there was a necessity for explanation.

Maurice accompanied the count, his mother, and Bertha to Washington, and there bidding them adieu returned to Charleston.

His preparatory studies being now completed, he was received as junior partner by the gentleman who had initiated him into the mysteries of his profession.

It chanced that Mr. Lorrillard had large possessions in certain iron mines in Pennsylvania, which gave promise of yielding an immense profit. He had conceived a high esteem for the young viscount, and, with a view of promoting his interests, represented to him the advantage of purchasing a few shares, which could at that moment be favorably secured. Maurice had no funds at his command; but Mr. Lorrillard suggested that the viscount could easily procure the ten thousand dollars needful by a mortgage upon his Maryland estate, and even offered to give him a letter to Mr. Emerson,—a personal friend residing in Washington,—who, as the estate was wholly unembarrassed, would willingly loan the money upon this security. It was hardly possible for Maurice to have resided so long in America without being slightly bitten by the national mania for speculation, and he gladly accepted the offer of his principal, and retraced his steps to Washington.