ss wooden horses and
the white lawn, caught in a net of black paths from which the snow had
been cleared, while the statue that surmounted it held in its hand a
long pendent icicle which seemed to explain its gesture. The old lady
herself, having folded up her _Debats_, asked a passing nursemaid
the time, thanking her with "How very good of you!" then begged the
road-sweeper to tell her grandchildren to come, as she felt cold, adding
"A thousand thanks. I am sorry to give you so much trouble!" Suddenly
the sky was rent in two: between the punch-and-judy and the horses,
against the opening horizon, I had just seen, like a miraculous sign,
Mademoiselle's blue feather. And now Gilberte was running at full speed
towards me, sparkling and rosy beneath a cap trimmed with fur, enlivened
by the cold, by being late, by her anxiety for a game; shortly before
she reached me, she slipped on a piece of ice and, either to regain her
balance, or because it appeared to her graceful, or else pretending
that she was on skates, it was with outstretched arms that she smilingly
advanced, as though to embrace me. "Bravo! bravo! that's splendid;
'topping,' I should say, like you--'sporting,' I suppose I ought to say,
only I'm a hundred-and-one, a woman of the old school," exclaimed the
lady, uttering, on behalf of the voiceless Champs-Elysees, their thanks
to Gilberte for having come, without letting herself be frightened
away by the weather. "You are like me, faithful at all costs to our old
Champs-Elysees; we are two brave souls! You wouldn't believe me, I dare
say, if I told you that I love them, even like this. This snow (I know,
you'll laugh at me), it makes me think of ermine!" And the old lady
began to laugh herself.

The first of these days--to which the snow, a symbol of the powers that
were able to deprive me of the sight of Gilberte, imparted the sadness
of a day of separation, almost the aspect of a day of departure, because
it changed the outward form and almost forbade the use of the customary
scene of our only encounters, now altered, covered, as it were, in
dust-sheets--that day, none the less, marked a stage in the progress of
my love, for it was, in a sense, the first sorrow that she was to share
with me. There were only our two selves of our little company, and to
be thus alone with her was not merely like a beginning of intimacy, but
also on her part--as though she had come there solely to please me, and
in such weather--i