ung by its ribbons from my idle hand,
I vaguely and momentarily wondered to hear the step of but one
"ouvrier." I noted, too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary
leisure to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and not
sabots: I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter, coming to
inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw round me my scarf. He
advanced; he opened the door; my back was towards it; I felt a little
thrill--a curious sensation, too quick and transient to be analyzed. I
turned, I stood in the supposed master-artisan's presence: looking
towards the door-way, I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes
printed upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.

Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to the
suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life, one golden gift falls
prone in the lap--one boon full and bright, perfect from Fruition's
mint.

M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to travel--a
surtout, guarded with velvet; I thought him prepared for instant
departure, and yet I had understood that two days were yet to run
before the ship sailed. He looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and
benign: he came in with eagerness; he was close to me in one second; he
was all amity. It might be his bridegroom mood which thus brightened
him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his sunshine with cloud. If
this were my last moment with him, I would not waste it in forced,
unnatural distance. I loved him well--too well not to smite out of my
path even Jealousy herself, when she would have obstructed a kind
farewell. A cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes,
would do me good, for all the span of life that remained to me; it
would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness; I would take it--I
would taste the elixir, and pride should not spill the cup.

The interview would be short, of course: he would say to me just what
he had said to each of the assembled pupils; he would take and hold my
hand two minutes; he would touch my cheek with his lips for the first,
last, only time--and then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting,
then the wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
him--across which, haply, he would not glance, to remember me.

He took my hand in one of his, with the other he put back my bonnet; he
looked into my face, his luminous smile went out, his lips expressed
something almost like the wordless language o