lf universally
agreeable and trusting for a partner to his own unassisted efforts. For
myself, I was indebted to Monsieur Gustave for an introduction to a very
charming young lady whose name was Josephine, and with whom I fell over
head and ears in love without a moment's warning.

She was somewhat under the middle height, slender, supple, rosy-lipped,
and coquettish to distraction. Her pretty mouth dimpled round with
smiles at every word it uttered. Her very eyes laughed. Her hair, which
was more adorned than concealed by a tiny muslin cap that clung by some
unseen agency to the back of her head, was of a soft, warm, wavy brown,
with a woof of gold threading it here and there. Her voice was perhaps a
little loud; her conversation rather childish; her accent such as would
scarcely have passed current in the Faubourg St. Germain--but what of
that? One would be worse than foolish to expect style and cultivation in
a grisette; and had I not had enough to disgust me with both in Madame
de Marignan? What more charming, after all, than youth, beauty, and
lightheartedness? Were Noel and Chapsal of any importance to a mouth
that could not speak without such a smile as Hebe might have envied?

I was, at all events, in no mood to take exception to these little
defects. I am not sure that I did not even regard them in the light of
additional attractions. That which in another I should have called
_bete_, I set down to the score of _naivete_ in Mademoiselle
Josephine. One is not diffident at twenty--by the way, I was now
twenty-one--especially after dining at the Maison Doree.

Mademoiselle Josephine was frankness itself. Before I had enjoyed the
pleasure of her acquaintance for ten minutes, she told me she was an
artificial florist; that her _patronne_ lived in the Rue Menilmontant;
that she went to her work every morning at nine, and left it every
evening at eight; that she lodged _sous les toits_ at No. 70, Rue
Aubry-le-Boucher; that her relations lived at Juvisy; and that she went
to see them now and then on Sundays, when the weather and her funds
permitted.

"Is the country pretty at Juvisy, Mademoiselle?" I asked, by way of
keeping up the conversation.

"Oh, M'sieur, it is a real paradise. There are trees and fields, and
there is the Seine close by, and a chateau, and a park, and a church on
a hill, ... _ma foi!_ there is nothing in Paris half so pretty; not even
the Jardin des Plantes!"

"And have you been there latel