our.

I had to find something to fill up the somewhat long interval which
separated me from that happy moment. I wrote a letter to my Uncle
Mouillard, taking seven minutes over the address alone. I had not shown
such penmanship since I was nine years old. When the last flourish was
completed I looked for a paper; they were all engaged. The directory was
free. I took it, and opened it at Ch. I discovered that there were many
Charnots in Paris without counting mine: Charnot, grocer; Charnot,
upholsterer; Charnot, surgical bandage-maker. I built up a whole family
tree for the member of the Institute, choosing, of course, those persons
of the name who appeared most worthy to adorn its branches. Of what
followed I retain but a vague recollection. I only remember that I felt
twice as if some inquisitive individual were looking over my shoulder.
The third time I woke up with a start.

"Sir," said a shopwalker, with the utmost politeness, "a gentleman has
been waiting three quarters of an hour for the directory. Would you
kindly hand it to him if you have quite finished with it?"

It was a quarter to six. I still waited a little while, and then I left,
having wasted my day.

O Jeanne! where do you hide yourself? Must I, to meet you, attend mass at
St. Germain des Pres? Are you one of those early birds who, before the
world is up, are out in the Champs Elysees catching the first rays of the
morning, and the country breeze before it is lost in the smoke of Paris?
Are you attending lectures at the Sorbonne? Are you learning to sing?
and, if so, who is your teacher?

You sing, Jeanne, of course. You remind me of a bird. You have all the
quick and easy graces of the skylark. Why should you not have the
skylark's voice?

Fabien, you are dropping into poetry!

CHAPTER VI

THE FLOWER-SHOW

April 3d.

For a month I have written nothing in this brown notebook. But to-day
there is plenty to put down, and worth the trouble too.

Let me begin with the first shock. This morning, my head crammed with
passages from Latin authors, I leaned my brow against the pane of my
window which looks on the garden. The garden is not mine, of course,
since I live on the fourth floor; but I have a view of the big
weeping-willow in the centre, the sanded path that runs around it, and
the four walls lined with borders, one of which separates it from the
huge premises of the Carmelites. It is an almost deserted garde