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And this day of the festival had finally come With what joyful

impatience, hat anxious desire, had Natalie looked forward to

it--how had she importuned her friend, Count Paulo, with questions

about Cardinal Bernis, about the people she would es hich she would have to conform!

"I am anxious and fearful," said she, with ah at me, and you will be compelled to blush for reat ladies that it is my

very first appearance in society, and that they must have consideration

for the aardness and ineptitude of a poor child who knows nothing of

the world, its forms, or its laws"

"For you no excuse will be necessary," responded Paulo, pressing the

delicate tips of her fingers to his lips "Only be quite yourself,

perfectly true and open, inoffensive and cheerful! Forget that you are

in an assearden, under the trees

and a the flowers, and speak to people as you speak to your trees

and flowers"

"But will the people give me as true and cordial answers as htfully

"They will say to you s," said

Paulo, s of your

toilet See, the sun is already sinking behind the pines, and the

sky begins to redden! The tio will soon arrive, and your first

triu to wait," said Natalie, laughing, and, light

and graceful as a gazelle, she tripped to the house

Count Paulo gazed after her with a ht he, "to lose the brightest and noblest jewel

of my life, and drive myself out of paradise And wherefore all this?

Perhaps to chase a phantom that will never become a reality, to follow