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Philip kept as near the incoming waves as his inland-bred horse would endure, and sang, shouted, and hallooed to them as welcome as English waves; but Aime de Selinville had never even beheld the sea before: and even when the tide was still in the distance, was filled with nervous terror as each rushing fall sounded nearer; and, when the line of white foamy crests became more plainly visible, he was impelled to hurry on towards the steeple so fast that the guide shouted to him that he would only bury himself in a quicksand.

He seemed very anxious to know concerning the quarrels of the Regent and his wife, upon which subject F., of course, evaded giving him any answers. He said, "On dit qu'il aime la Mère de ce Yarmouth mais vous Anglais, vous aimez les vielles Femmes," and he laughed very much. He avoided speaking of Maria Louisa, but spoke of Joséphine with affection, saying, "Elle étoit une excellente Femme."

Ah! why is it, that the noblest of our passions should be also the most selfish? that while we would make all earthly sacrifice for the one we love, we are perpetually demanding a sacrifice in return; that if we cannot have the rapture of blessing, we find a consolation in the power to afflict; and that we acknowledge, while we reprobate, the maxim of the sage: 'L'on veut faire tout le bonheur, ou, si cela ne se peut ainsi, tout le malheur de ce qu'on aime."

I was truly fond of him; that is, "je l'aimais comme l'on aime." And how is that? How very little one human being generally cares for another! How very little the world misses anybody! How soon the chasm left by the best and wisest men closes!

"Parfaitement, mon bien aime." She smiled at him serenely. "I would not bury myself with you in an Ionian island for more than two months in a year for anything on earth. On my part, it would be the unforgivable sin. No woman has the right, however much she loves him, to ruin a man, any more than a man has the right to ruin a woman.

"Lovers and ladies never bore each other, because they never speak of anything but themselves." Do husbands and wives often bore each other for the same reason? Who said: "To know all is to forgive all"? It is rather like "On pardonne tant que l'on aime" "As long as we love we can forgive," a comfortable saying, and these are rare in Rochefoucauld.

But his frequent absence, his sustained distance of manner, had served to repress the feelings that in a young and virgin heart rarely flow with much force until they are invited and aroused. Le besoin d'aimer in girls, is, perhaps, in itself powerful; but is fed by another want, le besoin d'etre aime!

It is, at least, more humane than the slow, lingering process of exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of despatch which Moliere attributes to one of his physicians is no ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell: "C'est un homme expeditif, qui aime a depecher ses malades; et quand on a mourir, cela se fait avec lui le plus vite du monde."

He had still much of rude English boyhood about him, and he laughed roughly. 'A fine fellow, to weep at a word! Hie thee back to feed my Lady's lap-dog, 'tis all thou art fit for. 'There spoke English gratitude, said Aime, with a toss of the head and flash of the eye. Philip despised him the more for casting up his obligations, but had no retort to make.

Berenger interfered now and then to guard the poor boy from a horse-jest or practical joke, but he too felt that Aime was a great incumbrance, hopelessly cowardly, fanciful, and petulant; and he was sometimes driven to speak to him with severity, verging on contempt, in hopes of rousing a sense of shame.