She began to relent at last, though I was half inclined to be sorry, for her resentment became her even better than her good-humor.

“Well,” she said, finally, “it is too tiresome to quarrel, and I will forgive; for, although you say you have never seen Hermine,—­(that is a prettier name than Therese, isn’t it?)—­she has, perhaps, seen you, and may really love you “—­

“But I don’t love her,” I cried.  “I don’t want to love her.  I don’t want to see her.  Her name isn’t Hermine, I know.  I will never think of her again, nor make a fool of myself by putting nose-gays into her keyhole, if you will only not look so sober any more.”

“She will be very sorry for that, I am sure,” returned Therese, with a smile I could not translate; “and she will miss them very much.  I judge her by myself.  I always find a bunch at my door when I go home at night”—­

“You!  You find flowers at your door?  And who puts them there?” And I took my turn at being provoked.  “You haven’t used me fairly, Therese, to make me understand all this time that you cared for no one but me.  There is some one, then, whom you love and who loves you?”

“Oh, yes!” she answered, her whole face beaming with a pleasure which made me feel like committing a murder or a suicide; “oh, yes!  I believe he does; he has almost told me so.  And—­and I know that I do.  But he is so droll!  He is my next-door neighbor, and has never seen me yet, and has never tried to, I believe; but he leaves a bunch of flowers at my door every evening, and calls me—­Hermine.”

“Hermine!  You Hermine?  Hurrah!”

And before she could prevent me, I held her in my arms, and, in spite of her struggles, had kissed her forehead, eyes, hair, nose, and lips before she could extricate herself, and then went round the room in a wild dance of perfect joy and relief.

“I knew I could love no one else, Therese-Hermine, or Hermine-Therese!  I knew there must be some good and sufficient reason for the unaccountable attraction my neighbor was exercising over me.  Why didn’t you tell me sooner, mechante?  I suppose you never would have done so at all, if we had not come out here to-day.  Suppose I had not asked you to come with me?”

“Wouldn’t you have asked me?” she answered, with so much winning grace and in such a pleading tone that I found myself obliged to repeat the operation of a few lines above.  “Wouldn’t you have asked me?  I don’t know what I should have done,” she continued, sadly and thoughtfully.  “Oh, yes!” she exclaimed, jumping up and clapping her hands, while her whole face was radiant with triumph.  “Oh, yes! then I should have been Hermine, and you would have asked her.”

Two happier young people than Therese and myself never, I am confident, returned by rail from a day’s excursion in the country.  Our happy faces, our rapid talking, and our devotion to each other, which we took no pains to conceal, attracted the attention of all about us,—­and I heard one father of a family, who was returning to Paris with a half score of cross, tired, and crying children, whisper to his wife, as he pointed towards us,—­“That is a couple in their honey-moon, or else lovers; how happy they are!”