emerged, bare up to the shoulders, from her wide sleeves.

"What can those mice on the roof have done to him?" thought
Chrysanthème. Of course she could not understand. In a coaxing manner,
like a playful kitten, she glanced at me with her half-closed eyes,
inquiring why I did not come back to sleep,--and I returned to my
place by her side.




XI.


_July 14th_.

It is the National Fête day of France. In Nagasaki roadstead, all the
ships are dressed out with flags, and salutes are firing in our honor.

Alas! All day long, I cannot help thinking of that last fourteenth of
July, spent in the deep calm and stillness of my old home, the door
closed to all intruders, while the gay crowd roared outside; there I
had remained till evening, seated on a bench, shaded by a trellis
covered with honeysuckle, where in the bye-gone days of my childhood's
summers, I used to settle myself with my copybooks and pretend to
learn my lessons. Oh! those days when I was supposed to learn my
lessons: how my thoughts used to rove,--what voyages, what distant
lands, what tropical forests did I not behold in my dreams! At that
time, near the garden bench, in some of the crevices in the stone
wall, there dwelt many a big ugly black spider ever on the watch,