e prospective
bridegroom; two or three were already affianced by their parents, and
had been so from childhood: but into the realm of feelings and hopes
which such prospects open, my speculations, far less my presumptions,
had never once had warrant to intrude. If the other teachers went into
town, or took a walk on the boulevards, or only attended mass, they
were very certain (according to the accounts brought back) to meet with
some individual of the "opposite sex," whose rapt, earnest gaze assured
them of their power to strike and to attract. I can't say that my
experience tallied with theirs, in this respect. I went to church and I
took walks, and am very well convinced that nobody minded me. There was
not a girl or woman in the Rue Fossette who could not, and did not
testify to having received an admiring beam from our young doctor's
blue eyes at one time or other. I am obliged, however humbling it may
sound, to except myself: as far as I was concerned, those blue eyes
were guiltless, and calm as the sky, to whose tint theirs seemed akin.
So it came to pass that I heard the others talk, wondered often at
their gaiety, security, and self-satisfaction, but did not trouble
myself to look up and gaze along the path they seemed so certain of
treading. This then was no billet-doux; and it was in settled
conviction to the contrary that I quietly opened it. Thus it ran--I
translate:--

"Angel of my dreams! A thousand, thousand thanks for the promise kept:
scarcely did I venture to hope its fulfilment. I believed you, indeed,
to be half in jest; and then you seemed to think the enterprise beset
with such danger--the hour so untimely, the alley so strictly
secluded--often, you said, haunted by that dragon, the English
teacher--une veritable begueule Britannique a ce que vous dites--espece
de monstre, brusque et rude comme un vieux caporal de grenadiers, et
reveche comme une religieuse" (the reader will excuse my modesty in
allowing this flattering sketch of my amiable self to retain the slight
veil of the original tongue). "You are aware," went on this precious
effusion, "that little Gustave, on account of his illness, has been
removed to a master's chamber--that favoured chamber, whose lattice
overlooks your prison-ground. There, I, the best uncle in the world, am
admitted to visit him. How tremblingly I approached the window and
glanced into your Eden--an Eden for me, though a desert for you!--how I
feared to behold vacan