and I am very much afraid that I have left it
in one of Marcel's drawers."

The disappearance of the three Bohemian households was the occasion of a
festival in the house they had inhabited. As a token of rejoicing the
landlord gave a grand dinner, and the lodgers lit up their windows.

Rodolphe and Marcel went to live together. Each had taken a new idol
whose name they were not exactly acquainted with. Sometimes it happened
that one spoke of Musette and the other of Mimi, and then they had a
whole evening of it. They recalled to one another their old life, the
songs of Musette and the songs of Mimi, nights passed without sleep,
idle mornings, and dinners only partaken of in dreams. One by one they
hummed over in these recolletive ducts all the bygone hours, and they
usually wound up by saying that after all they were still happy to find
themselves together, their feet on the fender, stirring the December
log, smoking their pipes, and having as a pretext for open conversation
between them that which they whispered to themselves when alone--that
they had dearly loved these beings who had vanished, bearing away with
them a part of their youth, and that perhaps they loved them still.

One evening when passing along the Boulevard, Marcel perceived a few
paces ahead of him a young lady who, in alighting from a cab, exposed
the lower part of a white stocking of admirable shape. The very driver
himself devoured with his eyes this charming gratification in excess of
his fare.

"By Jove," said Marcel. "That is a neat leg, I should like to offer it
my arm. Come, now, how shall I manage to accord it? Ha! I have it--it is
a fairly novel plan. Excuse me, madame," continued he, approaching the
fair unknown, whose face at the outset he could not at first get a full
view of, "but you have not by chance found my handkerchief?"

"Yes, sir," replied the young lady, "here it is." And she placed in
Marcel's hand a handkerchief she had been holding in her own.

The artist rolled into an abyss of astonishment.

But all at once a burst of laughter full in his face recalled him to
himself. By this joyous outbreak he recognized his old love.

It was Mademoiselle Musette.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Monsieur Marcel in quest of gallant adventures.
What do you think of this one, eh? It does not lack fun."

"I think it endurable," replied Marcel.

"Where are you going so late in this region?" asked Musette.

"I am going into that edifice,"