OF THE FOREST. 87

motto, in letters of gold, wrought on a blue
riband, twisted into the wreath. The vis-
comtesse de T , who stood on the right
hand of the Baronne, as I did at the left,
would have taken it for a moment into her
own hands, exclaiming, “Permit me, Ma-
dame! ah, how beautiful! it is perfectly
captivating!” But the Baronne would not
part with it from her hand, nor suffer the
golden letters on the blue riband to be
read,

 

“T am, I feel,” she said, “in a perilous
situation ; I am about to make a choice amidst
so many beauties, that I shall be in danger
of incurring the odium of possessing a bad
taste in still rejecting the most worthy, let
my choice fall where it will; and J, therefore,
have nothing but my motto to depend upon
to extricate me from this difficulty ; therefore
none must see my motto till I choose to
show it myself.”

The Baronne then paused, and looked
around her, and as her eye ran along the
lovely circle, I saw that several of the young
ladies changed colour, especially the two at