De Sevignie spoke not, but his smile declared his readiness to oblige; Clermont put his oboe into his hands, and they proceeded to a rustic bench, beneath the spreading branches of a chestnut tree, near the cottage. Here they passed a considerable time in a most delightful manner; the execution of de Sevignie was in the most masterly style, but his taste if possible surpassed it, and never had his companions been more gratified than they were by listening to him: at last they rose to return to the cottage, and he then bade them farewell.
From this day de Sevignie became almost an inmate of the cottage: and as Clermont, then engrossed by the vintage, could not devote much time to him, Madeline was almost his sole, and during the mornings, his only companion; those mornings were generally spent either in reading poems to Madeline, to which the harmony of his voice imparted new charms, in watching the progress of her pencil, or in listening to
