lways coddling and admonishing."

The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was
hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he
turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty
of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.

"She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her," said I, folding
it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her
arms. "Is that Isidore?" I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.

She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.

"Is _that_ Isidore?" I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have given
her a dozen.

"C'est lui-meme," said she. "How coarse he is, compared with the
Colonel-Count! And then--oh ciel!--the whiskers!"

Dr. John now passed on.

"The Colonel-Count!" I echoed. "The doll--the puppet--the manikin--the
poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his
foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman--handsome as a
vision--offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises
to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and
struggles of life--and you hang back--you scorn, you sting, you torture
him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where is it?
Does it lie all in your beauty--your pink and white complexion, and
your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend his
neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection, his
tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble, cordial
love--and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only
dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him;
but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?"

"Bah! How you run on! I don't understand half you have said."

I had got her out into the garden ere this. I now set her down on a
seat and told her she should not stir till she had avowed which she
meant in the end to accept--the man or the monkey.

"Him you call the man," said she, "is bourgeois, sandy-haired, and
answers to the name of John!--cela suffit: je n'en veux pas. Colonel de
Hamal is a gentleman of excellent connections, perfect manners, sweet
appearance, with pale interesting face, and hair and eyes like an
Italian. Then too he is the most delightful company possible--a man
quite in my way; not sensible and serious like the other; but one with
whom I can talk on equal terms--who does not plague and bor