good fellow, should be made receiver-general, and you yourself could
get him elected deputy. But, alas! poor ambitious man, my first duty
is to silence my ambition. Knowing myself at the bottom of the bag
like the last number in a family lottery, I can only offer you my arm
and not my heart. I hope all from a good marriage, and, believe me, I
shall make my wife not only happy, but I shall make her one of the
first in the land, receiving from her the means of success. It is so
fine a day, will you not take a turn in the Luxembourg?" he added, as
they reached the rue d'Enfer at the corner of Colleville's house,
opposite to which was a passage leading to the gardens by the stairway
of a little building, the last remains of the famous convent of the
Chartreux.

The soft yielding of the arm within his own, indicated a tacit consent
to this proposal, and as Flavie deserved the honor of a sort of
enthusiasm, he drew her vehemently along, exclaiming:--

"Come! we may never have so good a moment--But see!" he added, "there
is your husband at the window looking at us; let us walk slowly."

"You have nothing to fear from Monsieur Colleville," said Flavie,
smiling; "he leaves me mistress of my own actions."

"Ah! here, indeed, is the woman I have dreamed of," cried the
Provencal, with that ecstasy that inflames the soul only, and in tones
that issue only from Southern lips. "Pardon me, madame," he said,
recovering himself, and returning from an upper sphere to the exiled
angel whom he looked at piously,--"pardon me, I abandon what I was
saying; but how can a man help feeling for the sorrows he has known
himself when he sees them the lot of a being to whom life should bring