But in the quiet life of the cloister, Amelie heard little of the
storms of war upon the frontier and down in the far valleys of
Acadia. She had not followed the career of Pierre from the military
school to the camp and the battlefield, nor knew of his rapid
promotion, as one of the ablest officers in the King's service, to a
high command in his native Colony.
Her surprise, therefore, was extreme when she learned that the boy
companion of her brother and herself was no other than the renowned
Colonel Philibert, Aide-de-Camp of His Excellency the Governor-
General.
There was no cause for shame in it; but her heart was suddenly
illuminated by a flash of introspection. She became painfully
conscious how much Pierre Philibert had occupied her thoughts for
years, and now all at once she knew he was a man, and a great and
noble one. She was thoroughly perplexed and half angry. She
questioned herself sharply, as if running thorns into her flesh, to
inquire whether she had failed in the least point of maidenly
modesty and reserve in thinking so much of him; and the more she
questioned herself, the more agitated she grew under her self-
accusation: her temples throbbed violently; she hardly dared lift
her eyes from the ground lest some one, even a stranger, she
thought, might see her confusion and read its cause.
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