Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/159

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A DETECTION.
159

Sunday to go to church; and true to the stroke of the bell, Charles Lovett was on the steps to go with her. She had often whole evenings, when Adéle had gone out without preparing her task-work, to read and write. She wrote often to her mother and Mrs. Lovett. Her separation from all she dearly loved sometimes brought the tears from her eyes to the paper; but she wrote cheerfully, said nothing of her trials, or put them in the faint hues of the distance in the landscape, while her pleasures filled the foreground. The letters began and ended with some allusion to Charles. Sometimes "Charles thought the sermon the best he ever heard," or "Charles thought it not quite so instructive as the last Sabbath." "It was a rainy Sunday, and Charles prudently wore his old coat," or "it was such a beautiful Sabbath, and Charles looked so well in his new coat." "Last Sabbath, dear Mrs. Lovett, Charles laughed and said my old bonnet wanted a new riband and my old riband a new bonnet; and so, to reconcile him, I told him how, remembering mother's advice, never to wear what was not suited to my circumstances, though given to me, I had declined a present from Mrs. Hartell of a French pink satin hat, hardly soiled at all. The next day he sent me the greatest beauty of a little straw bonnet with a white satin riband—I hope it will never wear out!" "Mother, there is one thing I wish you would tell me whether you think wrong. Charles and I always come the longest way home from church—it seems very short too" "Is not it strange Eugene should know Charles? When I am holding him up at the window, and he sees him coming up the street, he