ich Philippe VII had so often held in his own,
while we began our game upon the lawn, scattering the pigeons, whose
beautiful, iridescent bodies (shaped like hearts and, surely, the lilacs
of the feathered kingdom) took refuge as in so many sanctuaries, one on
the great basin of stone, on which its beak, as it disappeared below the
rim, conferred the part, assigned the purpose of offering to the bird in
abundance the fruit or grain at which it appeared to be pecking, another
on the head of the statue, which it seemed to crown with one of those
enamelled objects whose polychrome varies in certain classical works
the monotony of the stone, and with an attribute which, when the goddess
bears it, entitles her to a particular epithet and makes of her, as a
different Christian name makes of a mortal, a fresh divinity.

On one of these sunny days which had not realised my hopes, I had not
the courage to conceal my disappointment from Gilberte.

"I had ever so many things to ask you," I said to her; "I thought that
to-day was going to mean so much in our friendship. And no sooner have
you come than you go away! Try to come early to-morrow, so that I can
talk to you."

Her face lighted up and she jumped for joy as she answered: "Tomorrow,
you may make up your mind, my dear friend, I sha'n't come!

"First of all I've a big luncheon-party; then in the afternoon I
am going to a friend's house to see King Theodosius arrive from her
windows; won't that be splendid?--and then, next day, I'm going to
_Michel Strogoff_, and after that it will soon be Christmas, and the New
Year holidays! Perhaps they'll take me south, to the Riviera; won't that
be nice? Though I should miss the Christmas-tree here; anyhow, if I do
stay in Paris, I sha'n't be coming here, because I shall be out paying
calls with Mamma. Good-bye--there's Papa calling me."

I returned home with Francoise through streets that were still gay with
sunshine, as on the evening of a holiday when the merriment is over. I
could scarcely drag my legs along.

"I'm not surprised;" said Francoise, "it's not the right weather for the
time of year; it's much too warm. Oh dear, oh dear, to think of all
the poor sick people there must be everywhere; you would think that up
there, too, everything's got out of order."

I repeated to myself, stifling my sobs, the words in which Gilberte had
given utterance to her joy at the prospect of not coming back, for a
long time, to the Champs-E