extraordinary refinement and super-delicacy. Before entering my aunt's
room and opening the longed-for drawer, I washed, combed my hair, and
tidied myself, as I have seen since is usually done before repairing
to a love appointment.

I often happened to meet in the street other boys of my age, very
proud of their slip of a sweetheart, who would exultingly show me
love-letters, photographs, and flowers, and who asked me if I hadn't a
sweetheart with whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable
bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and
haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the
beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and
disdainfully call them _ugly mugs_.

One Sunday I went to play in the house of some little girl-cousins,
really very pretty, the eldest of whom was not yet fifteen. We were
amusing ourselves looking into a stereoscope, when suddenly one of the
little girls, the youngest, who counted twelve summers at most,
secretly seized my hand, and in some confusion and blushing as red as
a brazier, whispered in my ear:

"Take this."

At the same time I felt in the palm of my hand something soft and
fresh, and saw that it was a rosebud with its green foliage. The
little girl ran away smiling and casting a side-glance at me; but I,
with a Puritanism worthy of Joseph, cried out in my turn:

"Take this!"