' said madame; 'I accept the bet. We Poles are as great gamblers
as yourselves, you see,' added she, turning to me. 'Now, monsieur,
decide the question. Will you dine with Van Hottentot on Tuesday
next--or with me?'

The last three words were spoken in so low a tone as made me actually
suspect that my imagination alone had conceived them.

'Well,' cried the count, 'what say you?'

'I pronounce for the--Hotel de. France,' said I, fearing in what words
to accept the invitation of the lady.

'Then I have lost my bet,' said the count, laughing; 'and, worse still,
have found myself mistaken in my opinion.'

'And I,' said madame, in a faint whisper, 'have won mine, and found my
impressions more correct.'

Nothing more occurred worth mentioning on our way back; when we reached
the hotel in safety, we separated with many promises to meet early next
day.

From that hour my intimacy took a form of almost friendship. I visited
the count, or the countess if he was out, every morning; chatted
over the news of the day; made our plans for the evening, either for
Boitsfort or Lacken, or occasionally the _allee verte_ or the theatre,
and sometimes arranged little excursions to Antwerp, Louvain, or Ghent.

It is indeed a strange thing to think of what slight materials happiness
is made up. The nest that incloses our greatest pleasure is a thing of
straws and feathers, gathered at random or carried towards us by the
winds of fortune. If you were to ask me now what I deemed the most
delightful period of my whole life, I don't hesitate to say I should
name this. In the first place, I possessed the great requisite of
happiness--every moment of my whole day was occupied; each hour was
chained to its fellow by some slight but invisible link; and whether
I was hammering away at my Polish grammar, or sitting beside the
pianoforte while the countess sang some of her country's ballads, or
listening to legends of Poland in its times of greatness, or galloping
along at her side through the forest of Soignies, my mind was ever full;
no sense of weariness or ennui ever invaded me, while a consciousness
of a change in myself--I knew not what it was--suggested a feeling of
pleasure and delight I cannot account for or convey. And this, I take
it--though speaking in ignorance and merely from surmise--this, I
suspect, is something like what people in love experience, and
what gives' them the ecstasy of the passion. There is sufficient
concentrati