nally, "it is too tiresome to quarrel, and I will
forgive; for, although you say you have never seen Hermine,--(that is a
prettier name than Therese, isn't it?)--she has, perhaps, seen you, and
may really love you "--

"But I don't love her," I cried. "I don't want to love her. I don't want
to see her. Her name isn't Hermine, I know. I will never think of her
again, nor make a fool of myself by putting nose-gays into her keyhole,
if you will only not look so sober any more."

"She will be very sorry for that, I am sure," returned Therese, with a
smile I could not translate; "and she will miss them very much. I judge
her by myself. I always find a bunch at my door when I go home at
night"--

"You! You find flowers at your door? And who puts them there?" And I
took my turn at being provoked. "You haven't used me fairly, Therese, to
make me understand all this time that you cared for no one but me. There
is some one, then, whom you love and who loves you?"

"Oh, yes!" she answered, her whole face beaming with a pleasure which
made me feel like committing a murder or a suicide; "oh, yes! I believe
he does; he has almost told me so. And--and I know that I do. But he is
so droll! He is my next-door neighbor, and has never seen me yet, and
has never tried to, I believe; but he leaves a bunch of flowers at my
door every evening, and calls me--Hermine."

"Hermine! You Hermine? Hurrah!"

And before she could prevent me, I held her in my arms, and, in spite
of her struggles, had kissed her forehead, eyes, hair, nose, and lips
before she could extricate herself, and then went round the room in a
wild dance of perfect joy and relief.

"I knew I could love no one else, Therese-Hermine, or Hermine-Therese! I
knew there must be some good and sufficient reason for the unaccountable
attraction my neighbor was exercising over me. Why didn't you tell me
sooner, _mechante_? I suppose you never would have done so at all, if we
had not come out here to-day. Suppose I had not asked you to come with
me?"

"Wouldn't you have asked me?" she answered, with so much winning grace
and in such a pleading tone that I found myself obliged to repeat the
operation of a few lines above. "Wouldn't you have asked me? I don't
know what I should have done," she continued, sadly and thoughtfully.
"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, jumping up and clapping her hands, while her
whole face was radiant with triumph. "Oh, yes! then I should have been
Hermine, and yo