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30
Chapter Fourth

The next morning when D'Aubigne entered the breakfast room
finding no one there, he took up a news-paper to read until
Julia should come down. Some time passed; at last the servant, having
arranged the breakfast, placed his seat at table, told him that his
mistress had a headache and begged to be excused. Henry and Rosa
joined him. When the table was cleaned, Henry filled his satchel with
his books, & shaking hands with his uncle, as he called D'Aubigne
went off cheerily to school. Rosa asked if she should run & get
a little book to read her lesson to him; he assented, & away she flew.
D'Aubigne walked the room, still thinking of what had occupied
his wakinful hours through the night; the agitation Julia had
betrayed on seeing the superscription of the letter, this agitation, followed
by indisposition this morning - what could occasion it. Were the com-
munication from her husband, why hastily conceal the letter, as
she had done, on the approach of D'Aubigne? Was her husband ill?
How long was he to be absent? Where was he gone? All these
questions he would feign have asked Julia, but since the day of
his arrival, when she had told him her husband had gone on a
journey, she had so evidently awarded the subject, was so complete
-ly silent as to every thing that concerned her , that D'Aubigne
equally shunned a topic which seemed to give her pain.

Mystery enveloped not only Julia's conduct, but charac-
-ter- he could not reconcile her animation & gaiety in company,
her sweetness & tenderness towards him, her excessive fondness for her
children, her general kindness, amenity & cheerfulness; with
idea of a negligent & indifferent wife - or with
an unhappy & abandoned one. And yet want of affection, -or wounded
affection must be he thought the cause of the repugnance she
discovered to speak of her husband. But that letter? - From
whom was that letter? He threw himself on a settee near an open window
and while one would have supposed he was intently watching the waving branches
of a willow tree that grew near, so immaneably were his eyes fixed upon
it. He was thinking of scenes and of days far, far, remote from

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