with greenish umbels; the wild oats--every weed prospers wonderfully. No
stranger approaches the enclosure, whose denizens are two or three
little deer with tawny coats gleaming through the trees.

This eminently romantic spot would harmonize with your melancholy. Mlle.
de Chateaudun not being in Paris, you have better chance of finding her
elsewhere.

Who knows if she has not taken refuge in one of these pretty
bird's-nests embedded in moss and foliage, their half-open blinds
overlooking the limpid flow of the Seine? Come quickly, my dear fellow;
I will not take advantage of your position as I did of Alfred's, to
overwhelm you from my moucharaby with a shower of green frogs, a miracle
which he has not been able to explain to his entire satisfaction. I will
show you an excellent spot to fish for white-bait; nothing calms the
passions so much as fishing with rod and line; a philosophical
recreation which fools have turned into ridicule, as they do everything
else they do not understand.

If the fish won't bite, you can gaze at the bridge, its piers blooming
with wild flowers and lavender; its noisy mills, its arches obstructed
by nets; the church, with its truncated roof; the village covering the
hill-side, and, against the horizon, the sharp line of woody hills.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN




IV.