proposal with
thanks, and hastened to collect together the plants he had gathered; but
all of a sudden he appeared seized with a scruple. He observed to his
companion that the road he was going was halfway up the hill, and led
in the direction of the castle of the Dames Royales at Bellevue; that by
going to the top he would consequently turn out of his road, and that it
was not right he should take this trouble for a stranger.

My father insisted upon it with his habitual good-nature; but, the more
eagerness he showed, the more obstinately the old man refused; it
even seemed to my father that his good intention at last excited his
suspicion. He therefore contented himself with pointing out the road to
the stranger, whom he saluted, and he soon lost sight of him.

Many hours passed by, and he thought no more of the meeting. He had
reached the copses of Chaville, where, stretched on the ground in a
mossy glade, he read once more the last volume of Emile. The delight of
reading it had so completely absorbed him that he had ceased to see or
hear anything around him. With his cheeks flushed and his eyes moist, he
repeated aloud a passage which had particularly affected him.

An exclamation uttered close by him awoke him from his ecstasy; he
raised his head, and perceived the tradesman-looking person he had met
before on the crossroad at Viroflay.

He was loaded with plants, the collection of which seemed to have put
him into high good-humor.

"A thousand thanks, sir," said he to my father. "I have found all that
you told me of, and I am indebted to you for a charming walk."

My father respectfully rose, and made a civil reply. The stranger had
grown quite familiar, and even asked if his young "brother botanist" did
not think of returning to Paris. My father replied in the affirmative,
and opened his tin box to put his book back in it.

The stranger asked him with a smile if he might without impertinence ask
the name of it. My father answered that it was Rousseau's Emile.

The stranger immediately became grave.

They walked for some time side by side, my father expressing, with the
warmth of a heart still throbbing with emotion, all that this work
had made him feel; his companion remaining cold and silent. The former
extolled the glory of the great Genevese writer, whose genius had made
him a citizen of the world; he expatiated on this privilege of great
thinkers, who reign in spite of time and space, and gather toge