she added in her simple,
sweet, musical tones:

"Have you hurt yourself--, Georges?" She had said Georges after a brief
silence, and in so low a voice that I scarcely heard it.

"I am very ridiculous, am I not, dear? and you are quite right to laugh
at me. What would you have? I am camping out and I am undergoing the
consequences."

"You are not ridiculous, but you are catching cold," and she began to
laugh again.

"Naughty girl!"

"Cruel one, you ought to say, and you would not be wrong if I were
to let you fall ill." She said this with charming grace. There was a
mingling of timidity and tenderness, modesty and raillery, which I find
it impossible to express, but which stupefied me. She smiled at me, then
I saw her move nearer to the wall in order to leave room for me, and, as
I hesitated to cross the room.

"Come, forgive me," she said.

I approached the bed; my teeth were chattering.

"How kind you are to me, dear," she said to me after a moment or so;
"will you wish me good-night?" and she held out her cheek to me. I
approached nearer, but as the candle had just gone out I made a mistake
as to the spot, and my lips brushed hers. She quivered, then, after a
brief silence, she murmured in a low tone, "You must forgive me; you
frightened me so just now."

"I wanted to kiss you, dear."

"Well, kiss me, my husband."

Within the trembling young girl the coquetry of the woman was breaking
forth in spite of herself.

I could not help it; she exhaled a delightful perfume which mounted to
my brain, and the contact of this dear creature whom I touched, despite
myself, swept away all my resolutions.

My lips--I do not know how it was--met hers, and we remained thus for a
long moment; I felt against my breast the echo of the beating heart, and
her rapid breathing came full into my face.

"You do love me a little, dear?" I whispered in her ear.

I distinguished amid a confused sigh a little "Yes!" that resembled a
mere breath.

"I don't frighten you any longer?"

"No," she murmured, very softly.

"You will be my little wife, then, Louise; you will let me teach you to
love me as I love you?"

"I do love you," said she, but so softly and so gently that she seemed
to be dreaming.

How many times have we not laughed over these recollections, already so
remote.

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER XIII. THE BLUE NOTE-BOOK

Toward midnight mamma made a sign to me with her eyes, and under cover
of a lively wa