to the boiling-point, and singing as gayly and almost as loudly as her
bird. Over the back of a chair was thrown the work she had been busied
with; and on the bed, almost hid by the curtains, was a pair of the
prettiest little blue garters I ever saw, even in Paris,--span-new they
were, and had evidently been bought no longer ago than the evening
before,--and some other articles of feminine apparel, which I will not
attempt to describe. I looked into her glass, I really believe, with the
hope of finding there a faint reflection of her face and figure. She
must have looked into it but a minute before going out. A book, like
a Testament, lay on the table. I knew I should find her name on the
fly-leaf, and was just on the point of satisfying myself with regard to
that particular when I heard her feet upon the stairs; and, with a start
which nearly carried away the curtains of her bed, I rushed from her
room into my own.

How my heart beat, after I had gently closed my door and was sitting
on the side of my bed, listening to the movements in the next room! It
didn't seem to me as though I had been guilty of a high misdemeanor,
and yet, though I had been prepared for her return, I was as much
discomposed as though I had been caught peeping.

So far from being satisfied with this resolution of my doubts with
regard to the sex of my neighbor, I now found myself more uneasy and
curious than before. Was she young and pretty and good? and what did she
do? and what was her name? My thoughts were perpetually running up those
six flights and stopping baffled at her close-shut door. I drew
ideal portraits of her, and introduced them into all my pictures as
pertinaciously as Rubens did his wives, and would often finish out an
accidental face in a study of rocks, much to my instructor's surprise
and my fellow-students' amusement. It was very remarkable, however,