insect,--it is easy for you to avoid me, whilst--"

"You are not talking with common sense," interrupted Stephane;
"look at this green beetle crawling across the road. I see him,
but he does not see me. But to drop this bantering--for it's quite
out of character with me--what I like in you is your remarkable
frankness, it really amuses me. By the way, be good enough to tell
me what book that is which never leaves you for a moment and which
you ponder over with such intensity. Do tell me," added he in a
coaxing, childish tone, "what is the book that you press to your
heart with so much tenderness."

Gilbert handed it to him.

"'Essay on the Metamorphosis of Plants.' So, plants have the
privilege of changing themselves? Mon Dieu, they must be happy!
But they ought to tell us their secret."

Then closing the volume, and returning it to Gilbert, he exclaimed:

"Happy man! you live among the plants of the field as if in your
element. Are you not something of a plant yourself? I am not sure
but that you have just now stopped reading to say to the primroses
and anemones covering this slope, 'I am your brother!' Mon Dieu! I
am sorry to have disturbed the charming conversation! And hold!
your eyes are a little the color of the periwinkle."

He turned his head and looked at Gilbert with a scornful air, and
had already prepared to leave him, when a glance over the road
dispersed his ill-humor, for in the distance he saw Wilhelm and his