flower, or help to lift me, or to render me any
trifling service, she forestalled him. And he
allowed her to do it, with the grave and resigned
air of a man who is powerless in the hands of a
cruel fate. So the summer passed, and I
was almost well when my aunt fell ill. Marie
was too much engaged with her mistress to
attend to me. She gave me up to the care
of her niece Louise; a good-natured and faithful,
but very foolish handmaiden.

"The first time that Louise took me
down to the summer-house, in order that
Monsieur Pierre might attend upon me as usual, I
discovered that she was by no means so strict
as her aunt. I spoke to Monsieur Pierre, and
she did not prevent him from answering, which
he did briefly enough. I asked him to help me
to sit up on my couch, and Louise took it as a
matter of course that he should comply.
Monsieur Pierre propped me up with a pillow, as
I had asked, and if it had been a divinity
who had required such an office from him, he
could not have performed it with deeper respect.
The next time he came, he was a little more
familiar, and the third time—we were alone for
the first and last time—Louise had dropped her
work in the garden, and had gone to look for it
while Monsieur Pierre was tying up my foot.
She found the gardener on her way, and
forgetting all about me, I suppose, stayed and
chatted with him. Monsieur Pierre went on
with his office and never looked at me; but I
was not a shy child, and I was bent on improving
the opportunity.

"'Monsieur Pierre, shall I soon be well?' I
asked.

"'Very soon, I hope.'

"'And do you think I shall really be able to
dance? I mean, like my elder sister, and wear
a white dress and flowers?' He looked up at
me. I tell you I was not a child in his eyes. I
have no doubt he saw me then as my fancy had
pictured myself—a maiden attired in white, with
flowers in my hair.

"'You will look like an angel,' he murmured.
Poor fellow! he must have been very far gone
indeed if he could think such a little mischievous
monkey as I could be like an angel. I was
charmed with the compliment, however, and,
as I was really grateful to him besides, I
exclaimed in the ardour of my thankfulness:

"'Monsieur Pierre, what shall I give you for
having cured me?'

"He shook his head. He had been paid for
his trouble; he wanted nothing. Now, lest you
should wonder at what follows, allow me to tell
that I had been reading a story in which
the heroine, a duke's daughter, having been
saved from certain death by a peasant's son,
embraced him in the presence of the whole ducal
court. I had thought this act of condescension
very charming, and, conceiving the distance
between Monsieur Pierre and myself to be fully as
great as that between the young peasant and
the duke's daughter, I said magnanimously:

"'Monsieur Pierre, I will embrace you.'
He was still kneeling by me, and I half sat up,
reclining against a heap of pillows. There was
scarcely any distance between us; I had only to
stoop a little to kiss his cheek, but my lips never
touched it. He looked at me for a moment, as
if I had been an angel indeed coming down
from heaven with a divine message of love;
then he started to his feet, and exclaimed:

"'Kiss me? I would die rather than let you.'

"This was so unlike my story, in which the
peasant's son fainted with joy at the honour
conferred upon him, that I was cut to the heart.
Nothing, moreover, could be more offensive than
Monsieur Pierre's manner, as he stood leaning
against the wall of the summer-house, his brows
knit, his face stern and scornful, and his arms
folded across his breast, looking much as I
had seen him look on that day when Marie had
taxed him with being tender hearted. I was
vexed and angry, and in my mortification I cried:

"'You are very rude, Monsieur Pierre!' And
so saying, I burst into tears.

"In a moment he was on his knees by me,
begging of me to forgive him. 'Oh! wretch,
miserable wretch that I am,' he said, 'is it
possible that I make your tears flow! But
what a wretch I should have been indeed to have
let you embrace me, mademoiselle! Surely no
baseness would have been equal to that!'

"I never had seen, and I never have seen,
any one look as he looked when he said this.
Put if you can an expression of mingled
worship and sorrow on the face of that Spanish
knight before us, and imagine the countenance
of Monsieur Pierre as he so addressed me. It
was well for me that I was but a child, else
such adoration must surely have turned my
head. A few years later I could not think of
it without retrospective emotion; but all I said
to him then was a saucy taunting:

"'Why did you kiss my foot, then? For you
know you did.'

"He turned crimson, and answered rather
bitterly:

"'Even a dog could do that.'

"I felt silenced. I was ashamed to have
reproached him with that act of grateful humility.
I was ashamed of myself altogether, and wished
Louise would come back. But she did not
come back. Monsieur Pierre was silent, and I
spoke no more. While he went on bandaging my
foot, I looked at the bright glimpse which I saw
through the open door of the summer-house.
The trees were turning yellow, and wore all
their autumnal beauty; but the grass was
green as in spring, the fountain danced merrily
in the sun, and the white statue beyond it, a
fleet Atalanta stooping to pick up the golden
fruit of the Hesperidæ, was to me as a promise
of life and strength. How I remember that
morning and the breeze that stirred the sere
foliage of the elm-trees, and the low voice of the
fountain, and a silent blackbird that hopped on
the grass, and Monsieur Pierre's bowed head
and fair hair as he stooped to secure the last
bandage on my foot. Never more was I to see
that sunlit garden; never more was I to visit
that little white temple; never more was I to
feel the touch of that kind and skilful hand.
Providence denied that its work should be