greatest solace in growing flowers.'

"Next day a signal from Gobain informed me that I was expected. After
the Countess' breakfast, when she was walking to and fro in front of
her house, I broke out some palings and went towards her. I had
dressed myself like a countryman, in an old pair of gray flannel
trousers, heavy wooden shoes, and shabby shooting coat, a peaked cap
on my head, a ragged bandana round my neck, hands soiled with mould,
and a dibble in my hand.

"'Madame,' said the housekeeper, 'this good man is your neighbor.'

"The Countess was not alarmed. I saw at last the woman whom her own
conduct and her husband's confidences had made me so curious to meet.
It was in the early days of May. The air was pure, the weather serene;
the verdure of the first foliage, the fragrance of spring formed a
setting for this creature of sorrow. As I then saw Honorine I
understood Octave's passion and the truthfulness of his description,
'A heavenly flower!'

"Her pallor was what first struck me by its peculiar tone of white
--for there are as many tones of white as of red or blue. On looking at
the Countess, the eye seemed to feel that tender skin, where the blood
flowed in the blue veins. At the slightest emotion the blood mounted
under the surface in rosy flushes like a cloud. When we met, the
sunshine, filtering through the light foliage of the acacias, shed on
Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian,
alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin. Her brown
eyes expressed both tenderness and vivacity; their brightness seemed
reflected in her face through the long downcast lashes. Merely by