as a record of the visit she was making; henceforth she would
have a specimen of the Sevres china, "which is only made for kings!" I
would not undeceive her by telling her that the products of the
manufactory are sold all over the world, and that her saucer, before it
was cracked, was the same as those that are bought at the shops for
sixpence! Why should I destroy the illusions of her humble existence? Are
we to break down the hedge-flowers that perfume our paths? Things are
oftenest nothing in themselves; the thoughts we attach to them alone give
them value. To rectify innocent mistakes, in order to recover some
useless reality, is to be like those learned men who will see nothing in
a plant but the chemical elements of which it is composed.

On leaving the manufactory, the two sisters, who had taken possession of
me with the freedom of artlessness, invited me to share the luncheon they
had brought with them. I declined at first, but they insisted with so
much good-nature, that I feared to pain them, and with some awkwardness
gave way.

We had only to look for a convenient spot. I led them up the hill, and we
found a plot of grass enamelled with daisies, and shaded by two
walnut-trees.

Madeleine could not contain herself for joy. All her life she had dreamed
of a dinner out on the grass! While helping her sister to take the
provisions from the basket, she tells me of all her expeditions into the
country that had been planned, and put off. Frances, on the other hand,
was brought up at Montmorency, and before she became an orphan she had
often gone back to her nurse's house. That which had the attraction of
novelty for her sister, had for her the charm of recollection. She told
of the vintage harvests to which her parents had taken her; the rides on
Mother Luret's donkey, that they could not make go to the right without
pulling him to the left; the cherry-gathering; and the sails on the lake
in the innkeeper's boat.

These recollections have all the charm and freshness of childhood.
Frances recalls to herself less what she has seen than what she has felt.
While she is talking the cloth is laid, and we sit down under a tree.
Before us winds the valley of Sevres, its many-storied houses abutting
upon the gardens and the slopes of the hill; on the other side spreads
out the park of St. Cloud, with its magnificent clumps of trees
interspersed with meadows; above stretch the heavens like an immense
ocean, in which the