Chapter XIII.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 47, 21 March 1884, Page 7

Chapter XIII.

... June 19. It was with a beating heart that I set cut this morning to pay my visit to Madame Darcet. I dreaded meeting Germain and I trembled at the mere possibility of his opening the door for me. In the sheets and roads [ could meet him with the greatest pleasure ; iur ten to one he would be absorbed in a book or looking straight b.foni him, and it would not matter whether I was blushing up to die roots of my bair or nor. But when I should be face to face with him, and have to speak, it would be a very different affair. However, the thing had to he done, ami I walked bravely through the garden gate, and found myself in ju&t such a little c:>uro as you see in a hundred nice old places iv Pai-U. Tnore was a beautiful old well, shaded by a Bohemian ohve, with an old-fasbioned railing of wrought ironwork running round it, over&l with clinging hops and honey -suckles. Clusters of wall-flowera bloom jd on the walls, and a vine flinging its soft green arm 3 over half the building. Away at the end of the court, through a little gate which opens under two immense lilacs, shone a vista of mignonette, and jasmine, and clematis, and roses, spreading away in breadths of fragrance under the bright sun. Birds were singing gaily in a cage suspended before the old loge dn concierge, and a bi» cat, dozing on the parapet of the wall, divided a fragment of sleepy attention between thorn and some hens which were picking at the grass springing between the flags of the conrt not far off. It was the very ideal of a sage's retreat. I must say I have a friendly feeling for men who choose these silent, flowery mansions for the scene of their home-life. {To be continued.)