had offered him his first opportunity to have a Phyllis to his Corydon
and he eagerly embraced it. Both yielded to the fancy, she dressed in
the garb of a shepherdess, he playing the rôle of Corydon at the age
of seventy years.

Sometimes stretched out on a carpet of verdure, he listened to the
enchanting music she drew from her instrument, or drank in the sweet
voice of his shepherdess singing melodious pastorals. A flock of
birds, charmed with this harmony, left their cages to caress with
their wings, Dupuis' harp, or intoxicated with joy, fluttered down
into her bosom. This little gallantry in which they had been trained
was a delicious spectacle to the shepherd philosopher and intoxicated
his senses. He fancied he was guiding with his mistress innumerable
bands of intermingled sheep; their conversation was in tender eclogues
composed by them both extemporaneously, the attractive surroundings
inspiring them with poetry.

Ninon was amazed when she found her "bon homme," as she called him, in
the startlingly original disguise of a shepherd, a crook in his hand,
a wallet hanging by his side, and a great flapping straw hat, trimmed
with rose colored silk on his head. Her first impression was that he
had taken leave of his senses, and she was on the point of shedding
tears over the wreck of a once brilliant mind, when Desyvetaux,
suspending his antics long enough to look about him, perceived her and
rushed to her side with the liveliest expressions of joy. He removed
her suspicions of his sanity by explaining his metamorphosis in a
philosophical fashion:

"You know, my dear Ninon, there are certain tastes and pleasures which
find their justification in a certain philosophy when they bear all