my daughter read this story.

_Second Reader_: Up till now I have not caught a glimpse of a single
hair of Mademoiselle Francine's muff; and, as to the young woman
herself, I do not know any better what she is like, whether she is fair
or dark.

Patience, readers, patience. I have promised you a muff, and I will give
you one later on, as my friend Jacques did to his poor love Francine,
who had become his mistress, as I have explained in the line left blank
above.

She was fair was Francine, fair and lovely, which is not usual. She had
remained ignorant of love until she was twenty, but a vague presentiment
of her approaching end counselled her not to delay if she would become
acquainted with it.

She met Jacques and loved him. Their connection lasted six months. They
had taken one another in the spring; they were parted in the autumn.
Francine was consumptive. She knew it and her lover Jacques knew it too;
a fortnight after he had taken up with her he had learned it from one of
his friends, who was a doctor.

"She will go with the autumn leaves," said the latter.

Francine heard this confidence, and perceived the grief it caused her
lover.

"What matters the autumn leaves?" said she, putting the whole of her
love into a smile. "What matters the autumn; it is summer, and the
leaves are green; let us profit by that, love. When you see me ready to
depart from this life, you shall take me in your arms and kiss me, and
forbid me to go. I am obedient you know, and I will stay."

And for five months this charming creature passed through the miseries
of Bohemian life, a smile and a song on her lips. As to Jacques, he let
himself be deluded. His friend often said to him, "Francine is worse,
she must be attended to." Then Jacques went all over Paris to obtain
the wherewithal for the doctor's prescription, but Francine would not
hear of it, and threw the medicine out of the window. At night, when she
was seized with a fit of coughing, she would leave the room and go out
on the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her.

One day, when they had both gone into the country, Jacques saw a tree
the foliage of which was turning to yellow. He gazed sadly at Francine,
who was walking slowly and somewhat dreamily.

Francine saw Jacques turn pale and guessed the reason of his pallor.

"You are foolish," said she, kissing him, "we are only in July, it is
three months to October, loving one another day and night as we do, we
sh