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CHAPTER XII.

"Adelante amigos mios,

Honra! fé y esperanza.

Adelante energia y amor.

Adelante y creencia!"

CONTRARY to all true romance, Avice met neither friend nor foe during her brief sojourn on board the vessel, and made her passage in every respect easily and satisfactorily,

Avice had one of those minds that deliberate and act, not act and deliberate.

Avice started on her friendship's pilgrimage; she was no prey to misgivings or doubts.

She

enquired at the Custom-house, and at the best hotels in Calais, but in vain.

At length,

Bridget heard, at one of the less good hotels, that Lady Alfred had been there, but had left it almost immediately. Avice went herself to enquire, and traced out enough to determine her to go on to the next little town, whither she thought she must be gone, and she did so. Upon her enquiring there, at the hotel, she was told that a lady, who did not give her name, young and pretty, with waving hair and slight figure, was there, or rather had been an hour before that she had ordered a carriage, and that she was gone the gentleman riding by the carriage.

"The gentleman!"

Avice had never even thought for an instant of Roma's being accompanied by any one but her maid; she had never supposed Hervie to be of the party!

No! her opinion of him, forbade her to believe it; she knew he would not do anything so likely to be injurious to Roma, as giving her

his escort.

But might not Roma have met with some one going in the same direction?

It was not very likely, but she resolved to try, and proceeded accordingly.

Ere long, the carriage she was in, gained upon one a little in advance of them.

She felt almost upon the verge of successshe could scarcely command her emotionnearer and nearer her liberally paid postillion pressed upon their quarry, and the long hill that obliged the latter to go slowly, was mounted at a round trot by the former. The other carriage was descending the hill; Avice's postboy, warm with the eagerness of pursuit, put his horses into a yet faster pace, cantered up to the carriage and desired it to "Stand!"

Mechanically it obeyed-the man behind shrieked "Robbers!"-the lady within fainted -the gentleman swore a terrible oath that no one should part him and his beloved!

In the confusion, Avice could not at first be heard, and could scarcely understand that she was supposed to be the person sent in pursuit. One glance at the fainting inhabitant of the car

riage, had enabled her to perceive that it was not Roma, and all she now desired was to obtain news of her, and retrace her weary way.

At length the gentleman's rhetoric failed, and he became calm enough to perceive that Avice was not in pursuit of him at all; and he heard her gentle tones as she said:

"Pardonnez-moi l'effroi que je vous ai causé. Je cherche une amie; on m'a indiqué votre voiture comme probablement la sienne; je l'ai poursuivie, sans vouloir vous déranger. Croyezmoi, je regrette beaucoup la peine et la frayeur, dont j'ai été la cause."

And she offered salts to the unfortunate girl, who, very very young, appeared to be attempting a flight that she would probably regret. The gentleman answered her, that he had seen Roma, or rather Lady Alfred on board; they had crossed the same day, he added that he knew no more, having been entirely occupied with the business of escorting "ma cousine" to Paris. Avice felt that "ma cousine" was meant to be ma femme;" but she did not feel it her duty to reason with him, or to interfere with his

affairs, and took her leave, returning whence she

came.

Anxious and disappointed she paced the little garden of the inn. It was just that time in autumn, or rather in the ripeness of summer, when the seeds of the lime-tree crackle pleasantly under the foot of the idler in the shade, as he muses in his walk-no rustling of dry leaves drowned the sound of these little minute

guns.

Avice was not at leisure for more than active meditation, however, just now. She needed to re-arrange her thoughts, and to think steadily upon her own position.

It was not very cheering.

Her father and mother out cruizing, and she alone in France, running after a lost friend!

And Hervie Ashill!

She did not forget to be thankful for the one bright gleam of that gloomy day.

The quick refutation granted her, of any imputation upon him.

She was not in the least inclined to love him, but she had a strong faith in goodness, and in

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