kin, and
quick-glancing black eyes which gave me a pleasant inward stir the first
time they rested on me. In my first acquaintance with this young lady,
the black eyes seemed to enlarge and soften when they fell on me: she
regarded me with what I took to be interest and approval: her face shone
with friendliness, and her voice was kind. In this way I was led on.

When she saw how far she had drawn me, her manner changed: she became
whimsical, never the same for five minutes: sometimes indifferent,
sometimes disdainful, sometimes gay at my expense. This treatment
touched my pride, and would have driven me off, but that still, when in
her presence, I felt in some degree the charm of the black eyes, the
well-chiselled face, the graceful swift motions, and what else I know
not. When I was away from her, this charm declined: nevertheless I chose
to keep her in my mind as just such a capricious object of adoration as
poets are accustomed to lament and praise in the same verses.

But indeed I was never for many days out of reach of her attractive
powers, for several of her own favourite haunts were on her side of the
brook by which I was in the habit of strolling or reclining for some
part of almost every fair day. Attended by a fat and sleepy old
waiting-woman, she was often to be seen running along the grassy bank
with a greyhound that followed her everywhere. For this animal she
showed a constancy of affection that made her changefulness to me the
more heart-sickening.

Thus, half in love, half in disgust, I sat moodily on my side of the
stream one sunny afternoon, watching her on the other side. She had been
running a race with the dog, and had just settled down on the green
bank, with the hound sitting on his haunches beside her. Both dog and
girl were panting, and her face was still merry with the fun of the
scamper. Her old attendant had probably been left dozing in some other
part of the wood. Here now was an opportunity for me to put in a sweet
speech or two. But as I looked at her and thought of her treatment of
me, my pride rebelled, and I suppose my face for the moment wore a
cloud. My expression, whatever it was, caught the quick eyes of Mlle.
Celeste. Being in merriment herself, she was the readier to make scorn
of my sulky countenance. She pealed out a derisive laugh.

"Oh, the sour face! Is that what comes of your eternal reading?"

I had in my hand a volume of Plutarch in the French of Amyot. Her
ridicule