dog that has lost
his master.

They call this _being loved_, poor things! And a good many of them say
to themselves, as did Caroline, "How will he manage?"

Adolphe has come to this. In this situation of things, the worthy and
excellent Deschars, that model of the citizen husband, invites the
couple known as Adolphe and Caroline to help him and his wife
inaugurate a delightful country house. It is an opportunity that the
Deschars have seized upon, the folly of a man of letters, a charming
villa upon which he lavished one hundred thousand francs and which has
been sold at auction for eleven thousand. Caroline has a new dress to
air, or a hat with a weeping willow plume--things which a tilbury will
set off to a charm. Little Charles is left with his grandmother. The
servants have a holiday. The youthful pair start beneath the smile of
a blue sky, flecked with milk-while clouds merely to heighten the
effect. They breathe the pure air, through which trots the heavy
Norman horse, animated by the influence of spring. They soon reach
Marnes, beyond Ville d'Avray, where the Deschars are spreading
themselves in a villa copied from one at Florence, and surrounded by
Swiss meadows, though without all the objectionable features of the
Alps.

"Dear me! what a delightful thing a country house like this must be!"
exclaims Caroline, as she walks in the admirable wood that skirts
Marnes and Ville d'Avray. "It makes your eyes as happy as if they had
a heart in them."

Caroline, having no one to take but Adolphe, takes Adolphe, who
becomes her Adolphe again. And then you should see her run about like
a fawn, and act once more the sweet, pretty, innocent, adorable
school-girl that she was! Her braids come down! She takes off her
bonnet, and holds it by the strings! She is young, pink and white
again. Her eyes smile, her mouth is a pomegranate endowed with
sensibility, with a sensibility which seems quite fresh.

"So a country house would please you very much, would it, darling?"
says Adolphe, clasping Caroline round the waist, and noticing that she
leans upon him as if to show the flexibility of her form.

"What, will you be such a love as to buy me one? But remember, no
extravagance! Seize an opportunity like the Deschars."

"To please you and to find out what is likely to give you pleasure,
such is the constant study of your own Dolph."

They are alone, at liberty to call each other their little names of
endearment, and run o