no other design on this Sunday than to attract attention,
in which he succeeded brilliantly. Everybody spoke of him,--of his
black velvet roundabout with silver buttons, his free rifleman's vest
of red and black stripes, and his other glories. The people of a
village, as of a city, are grateful to any one who will furnish them
with a subject of conversation. The old butcher, Florian's father,
drank in the fame of his son from every mouth, and did his best to
keep it at the full. He was still rather a handsome man himself,
with a rubicund face and bright gray eyes. He walked about in his
shirt-sleeves and carried his handkerchief in the armpit of his
waistcoat,--which gave him an air of originality. Whenever he met any
one, he drew out his snuff-box and offered a pinch of "doppelmops,"
saying, "My Florian brought it with him: he's a fine fellow, a'n't he?
None like him for twenty miles around. His master would give him his
daughter in a minute, but the rapscallion won't have her. His master
makes more out of hoofs than three Horb butchers do out of beef: he
kills eight calves every day and two or three oxen besides. What would
you think," he would generally add, taking off his little frontless
cap, formed in the resemblance of a cabbage-leaf, and putting it on
again, "if I was to go to Strasbourg and marry the girl? If she must
have a tall man, why shouldn't the old one be as good as the young? I
won't back out for any one yet a while."

[Illustration: He stopped at the door of George the blacksmith.]

He stopped longest at the door of George the blacksmith,--a childless
old man of more than eighty years of age,--who was always sitting
before his house at the roadside and hearing the news from all who
passed by. Old George and old Maurita of the Bridge were the two
persons through whom a piece of news could be brought to the cognizance
of every soul in the village. George repeated every thing, good or bad,
to tease others and to show them that he knew every thing; Maurita told
the good news to impart her gladness, and the sad ones to obtain
sharers in her regret. George the blacksmith was the largest purchaser
of the old butcher's vaunts.

Thus the Sunday passed; and, when Crescence returned with the geometer,
long after dark, she thanked her stars that the dreaded fracas had not
occurred.

4.
HOW FLORIAN AND CRESCENCE MET AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Crescence rose a