ately arming for
the effort."

"Making a simpleton, a warning, and an example of myself, before a
hundred and fifty of the 'papas' and 'mammas' of Villette."

And here, losing patience, I broke out afresh with a cry that I wanted
to be liberated--to get out into the air--I was almost in a fever.

"Chut!" said the inexorable, "this was a mere pretext to run away; _he_
was not hot, with the stove close at his back; how could I suffer,
thoroughly screened by his person?"

"I did not understand his constitution. I knew nothing of the natural
history of salamanders. For my own part, I was a phlegmatic islander,
and sitting in an oven did not agree with me; at least, might I step to
the well, and get a glass of water--the sweet apples had made me
thirsty?"

"If that was all, he would do my errand."

He went to fetch the water. Of course, with a door only on the latch
behind me, I lost not my opportunity. Ere his return, his half-worried
prey had escaped.

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE DRYAD.

The spring was advancing, and the weather had turned suddenly warm.
This change of temperature brought with it for me, as probably for many
others, temporary decrease of strength. Slight exertion at this time
left me overcome with fatigue--sleepless nights entailed languid days.

One Sunday afternoon, having walked the distance of half a league to
the Protestant church, I came back weary and exhausted; and taking
refuge in my solitary sanctuary, the first classe, I was glad to sit
down, and to make of my desk a pillow for my arms and head.

Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.

My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers, and
the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul was not
of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl with him ere
no