t as soon as she had recovered
her senses, the philosopher's heart was touched by her beauty. To
please her benefactor the girl played several selections on a harp and
accompanied the instrument with a charming and seductive voice.

Desyvetaux, who was a passionate admirer of music, was captivated by
this accomplishment, and suddenly conceived the desire to spend the
rest of his days in the company of this charming singer. It was not
difficult for a girl who had been making it her business to frequent
the wineshops of the suburbs with a brother, earning a precarious
living by singing and playing on the harp, to accept such a
proposition, and consent to bestow happiness upon an excessively
amorous man, who offered to share with her a luxurious and tranquil
life in one of the finest residences in the suburb Saint Germain.

Although most of his life had been passed at court as the governor of
M. de Vendome, and tutor of Louis XIII, he had always desired to lead
a life of peace and quiet in retirement. The pleasures of a sylvan
life which he had so often described in his lectures, ended by leading
his mind in that direction. The young girl he found on his doorstep
had offered him his first opportunity to have a Phyllis to his Corydon
and he eagerly embraced it. Both yielded to the fancy, she dressed in
the garb of a shepherdess, he playing the role of Corydon at the age
of seventy years.

Sometimes stretched out on a carpet of verdure, he listened to the
enchanting music she drew from her instrument, or drank in the sweet
voice of his shepherdess singing melodious pastorals. A flock of
birds, charmed with this harmony, left their cages to caress with
their wings, Dupuis' harp, or intoxicated with joy, fluttered down
into her bosom. This little gallantry in which they had been trained
was a delicious spectacle to the shepherd philosopher and intoxicated
his senses. He fancied he was guiding with his mistress innumerable
bands of intermingled sheep; their conversation was in tender eclogues
composed by them both extemporaneously, the attractive surroundings
inspiring them with poetry.

Ninon was amazed when she found her "bon homme," as she called him, in
the startlingly original disguise of a shepherd, a crook in his hand,
a wallet hanging by his side, and a great flapping straw hat, trimmed
with rose colored silk on his head. Her first impression was that he
had taken leave of his senses, and she was on the point of she