like a horseman, about to get into the saddle, we saw her left knee,
smooth and shining as marble, slowly bury itself. We seemed to hear a
kind of creaking, but this creaking sounded joyful. The sight was brief,
too brief, alas! and it was in a species of delightful confusion that we
perceived a well-rounded limb, dazzlingly white, struggling in the silk
of the quilt. At length everything became quiet again, and it was as
much as we could do to make out a smooth, rose-tinted little foot which,
not being sleepy, still lingered outside and fidgeted with the silken
covering.

Delightful souvenir of my lively youth! My pen splutters, my paper seems
to blush to the color of that used by the orange-sellers. I believe I
have said too much.

I learned some time afterward that my friend De K. was about to be
married, and, singularly enough, was going to wed this beautiful creature
with whom I was so well acquainted.

"A charming woman!" I exclaimed one day.

"You know her, then?" said someone.

"I? No, not the least in the world."

"But?"

"Yes-no, let me see; I have seen her once at high mass."

"She is not very pretty," some one remarked to me.