enjoyment of the rain which prompts little children to stroll along solemnly in stormy weather with open umbrellas in their hands.  After a while they came to prefer the rainy evenings, though their parting became more painful on those occasions.  Miette was obliged to climb the wall in the driving rain, and cross the puddles of the Jas-Meiffren in perfect darkness.  As soon as she had left his arms, she was lost to Silvere amidst the gloom and the noise of the falling water.  In vain he listened, he was deafened, blinded.  However, the anxiety caused by this brusque separation proved an additional charm, and, until the morrow, each would be uneasy lest anything should have befallen the other in such weather, when one would not even have turned a dog out of doors.  Perchance one of them had slipped, or lost the way; such were the mutual fears which possessed them, and rendered their next interview yet more loving.

At last the fine days returned, April brought mild nights, and the grass in the green alley sprouted up wildly.  Amidst the stream of life flowing from heaven and rising from the earth, amidst all the intoxication of the budding spring-time, the lovers sometimes regretted their winter solitude, the rainy evenings and the freezing nights, during which they had been so isolated so far from all human sounds.  At present the days did not draw to a close soon enough, and they grew impatient with the lagging twilights.  When the night had fallen sufficiently for Miette to climb upon the wall without danger of being seen, and they could at last glide along their dear path, they no longer found there the solitude congenial to their shy, childish love.  People began to flock to the Aire Saint-Mittre, the urchins of the Faubourg remained there, romping about the beams, and shouting, till eleven o’clock at night.  It even happened occasionally that one of them would go and hide behind the piles of timber, and assail Miette and Silvere with boyish jeers.  The fear of being surprised amidst that general awakening of life as the season gradually grew warmer, tinged their meetings with anxiety.

Then, too, they began to stifle in the narrow lane.  Never had it throbbed with so ardent a quiver; never had that soil, in which the last bones left of the former cemetery lay mouldering, sent forth such oppressive and disturbing odours.  They were still too young to relish the voluptuous charm of that secluded nook which the springtide filled with fever.  The grass grew to their knees, they moved to and fro with difficulty, and certain plants, when they crushed their young shoots, sent forth a pungent odour which made them dizzy.  Then, seized with strange drowsiness and staggering with giddiness, their feet as though entangled in the grass, they would lean against the wall, with half-closed eyes, unable to move a step.  All the soft languor from the skies seemed to penetrate them.