and then. Enamoured of the South, of Provence, of its people, its
life, its sunshine and its poetry, narrow-chested, tall and short-
sighted, he strode along the streets and the lanes, his long feet
projecting far in advance of his body, and his white nose and
gingery moustache buried in an open book: for he had the habit of
reading as he walked. How he avoided falling into precipices, off
the quays, or down staircases is a great mystery. The sides of his
overcoat bulged out with pocket editions of various poets. When
not engaged in reading Virgil, Homer, or Mistral, in parks,
restaurants, streets, and suchlike public places, he indited
sonnets (in French) to the eyes, ears, chin, hair, and other
visible perfections of a nymph called Therese, the daughter,
honesty compels me to state, of a certain Madame Leonore who kept a
small cafe for sailors in one of the narrowest streets of the old
town.

No more charming face, clear-cut like an antique gem, and delicate
in colouring like the petal of a flower, had ever been set on,
alas! a somewhat squat body. He read his verses aloud to her in
the very cafe with the innocence of a little child and the vanity
of a poet. We followed him there willingly enough, if only to
watch the divine Therese laugh, under the vigilant black eyes of
Madame Leonore, her mother. She laughed very prettily, not so much
at the sonnets, which she could not but esteem, as at poor Henry's
French accent, which was unique, resembling the warbling of birds,
if birds ever warbled with a stuttering, nasal intonation.

Our third partner was Roger P. de la S-, the most Scandinavian-
looking of Provencal squires, fair, and six feet high, as became a
descendant of sea-roving Northmen, authoritative, incisive, wittily