“Under certain persuasions, from certain quarters,
je vous vois d’ici,” said he, “eagerly
subscribing to the sacrifice, passionately arming
for the effort.”
“Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example
of myself, before a hundred and fifty of the ‘papas’
and ‘mammas’ of Villette.”
And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with
a cry that I wanted to be liberated—to
get out into the air—I was almost in a fever.
“Chut!” said the inexorable, “this
was a mere pretext to run away; he was not
hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I
suffer, thoroughly screened by his person?”
“I did not understand his constitution.
I knew nothing of the natural history of salamanders.
For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander, and
sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least,
might I step to the well, and get a glass of water—the
sweet apples had made me thirsty?”
“If that was all, he would do my errand.”
He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a
door only on the latch behind me, I lost not my opportunity.
Ere his return, his half-worried prey had escaped.
THE DRYAD.
The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned
suddenly warm. This change of temperature brought
with it for me, as probably for many others, temporary
decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this
time left me overcome with fatigue—sleepless
nights entailed languid days.
One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of
half a league to the Protestant church, I came back
weary and exhausted; and taking refuge in my solitary
sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit down,
and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.
Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in
the berceau, and watched, through the glass door and
the tender, lightly-strewn spring foliage, Madame
Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had entertained
that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season
in blossom, and wearing a colouring as pure and warm
as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
My principal attraction towards this group of guests
lay, I remember, in one figure—that of
a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as a
visitor at Madame Beck’s, and of whom I had been
vaguely told that she was a “filleule,”
or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel’s, and that between
her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation
of hers, and the Professor, had existed of old a special
friendship. M. Paul was not of the holiday band
to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him ere
now, and as far as distant observation could enable
me to judge, she seemed to enjoy him with the frank
ease of a ward with an indulgent guardian. I
had seen her run up to him, put her arm through his,
and hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious
