on his knees before her, packing up
the--well! not wages of iniquity, but baits for it--to send back to the
giver. A little "cutting" may be made._]

[Sidenote: She returns the gift-clothes.]

Thereupon I opened my trunk to take out first the newly
bought linen. "Yes, M. de Valville, yes!" said I, pulling it
out, "you shall learn to know me and to think of me as you
ought." This thought spurred me on, so that, without my
exactly thinking of it, it was rather to him than to his
uncle that I was returning the whole, all the more so that
the return of linen, dress, and money, with a note I should
write, could not fail to disabuse Valville, and make him
regret the loss of me. He had seemed to me to possess a
generous soul; and I applauded myself beforehand on the
sorrow which he would feel at having treated so
outrageously a girl so worthy of respectful treatment as I
was--for I saw in myself, confessedly, I don't know how many
titles to respect.

In the first place I put my bad luck, which was unique; to
add to this bad luck I had virtue, and they went so well
together! Then I was young, and on the top of it all I was
pretty, and what more do you want? If I had arranged matters
designedly to render myself an object of sympathy, to make a
generous lover sigh at having maltreated me, I could not
have succeeded better; and, provided I hurt Valville's
feelings, I was satisfied. My little plan was never to see
him again in my lifetime; and this seemed to me a very fair
and proud one; for I loved him, and I was even very glad to
have loved him, because he had perceived my love, and,
seeing me break with him, notwithstanding, would see also
what a heart he had had to do with.

The little person goes on very delectably describing the packing, and
how she grudged getting rid of the pretty things, and at last sighed and
wept--whether for herself, or Valville, or the beautiful gown, she
didn't know. But, alas! there is no more room, except to salute her as
the agreeable ancestress of all the beloved coquettes and piquant minxes
in prose fiction since. Could anything handsomer be said of her creator?

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Prevost.]

[Sidenote: His minor novels--the opinions on them of Sainte-Beuve.]

[Sidenote: And of Planche.]

It is, though an absolute an