adame F-----, looking at
me, "and I will leave you my bottle."

"No, madam, be kind enough to take it with you, for the water would have
no virtue without your presence."

"I am sure of that," said M. D---- R-----, "so I will leave you here with
your patient."

"No, no, he must go to sleep now."

I slept all night, but in my happy dreams I was with her, and the reality
itself would hardly have procured me greater enjoyment than I had during
my happy slumbers. I saw I had taken a very long stride forward, for
twenty-four hours of abstinence gave me the right to speak to her openly
of my love, and the gift of her hair was an irrefutable confession of her
own feelings.

On the following day, after presenting myself before M. F----, I went to
have a little chat with the maid, to wait until her mistress was visible,
which was not long, and I had the pleasure of hearing her laugh when the
maid told her I was there. As soon as I went in, without giving me time
to say a single word, she told me how delighted she was to see me looking
so well, and advised me to call upon M. D---- R-----.

It is not only in the eyes of a lover, but also in those of every man of
taste, that a woman is a thousand times more lovely at the moment she
comes out of the arms of Morpheus than when she has completed her toilet.
Around Madame F---- more brilliant beams were blazing than around the sun
when he leaves the embrace of Aurora. Yet the most beautiful woman thinks
as much of her toilet as the one who cannot do without it--very likely
because more human creatures possess the more they want.

In the order given to me by Madame F---- to call on M. D---- R-----, I saw
another reason to be certain of approaching happiness, for I thought
that, by dismissing me so quickly, she had only tried to postpone the
consummation which I might have pressed upon her, and which she could not
have refused.

Rich in the possession of her hair, I held a consultation with my love to
decide what I ought to do with it, for Madame F----, very likely in her
wish to atone for the miserly sentiment which had refused me a small bit,
had given me a splendid lock, full a yard and a half long. Having thought
it over, I called upon a Jewish confectioner whose daughter was a skilful
embroiderer, and I made her embroider before me, on a bracelet of green
satin, the four initial letters of our names, and make a very thin chain
with the remainder. I had a piece of black ribb