he charms of her he had won.

The long looked for Sunday at length arrived, and Moireau was first at
the place of rendezvous. His simple dress augmented his natural good
looks, whilst the countess had spared no pains to render her appearance
calculated to captivate and seduce. All reserve was thrown aside; and to
satisfy the eager curiosity of her lover, she stated herself to be the
widow of a country lawyer, who had come to Paris to carry on a lawsuit.
It would be useless to follow the princess during the further course
of this meeting. Suffice it to say, that Moirreau and madame d'Egmont
separated mutually happy and satisfied with each other.

The youth, who was now ages gone in love, had only reached his
twenty-second year, and madame Rossin was his first attachment. So
ardent and impetuous did his passion hourly grow, that it became a
species of insanity. On the other hand, the high-born dame, who had thus
captivated him, felt all the attractions of his simple and untutored
love, further set off by the fine manly figure of the young shopman.
Indeed, so much novelty and interest did she experience in her new
amour, that, far from finding herself, as she had expected, disposed
to relinquish the affair (as she had anticipated) at the end of two
or three interviews, which she had imagined would have satisfied her
capricious fancy, she put off, to an indefinite period, her original
project of ending the affair by feigning a return to the country.

This resolution, however, she did not feel courage to carry into effect;
and two or three months rolled rapidly away without any diminution of
their reciprocal flame, when one fine Sunday evening Moireau, whose time
hung heavily on his hands, took it into his head to visit the opera.
This species of amusement constitutes the _ne plus ultra_ of the
delights of a French cit. Moireau seated himself in the pit, just
opposite the box of the gentlemen in waiting. The performance was
"Castor and Pollux." At the commencement of the second act a sudden
noise and bustle drew Moireau from the contemplative admiration into
which the splendor of the piece had thrown him. The disturbance arose
from a general move, which was taking place in the box belonging to the
gentlemen in waiting. Madame d'Egmont had just arrived, attended by four
or five grand lords of the court covered with gold, and decorated with
the order of the Holy Ghost, and two ladies richly dressed, from whom
she was disting