ette, as if it were a household, servant-like detail. Do me the
favour to leave this little basket at the house of Madame Walravens,
with my felicitations on her fete. She lives down in the old town,
Numero 3, Rue des Mages. I fear you will find the walk rather long, but
you have the whole afternoon before you, and do not hurry; if you are
not back in time for dinner, I will order a portion to be saved, or
Goton, with whom you are a favourite, will have pleasure in tossing up
some trifle, for your especial benefit. You shall not be forgotten, ma
bonne Meess. And oh! please!" (calling me back once more) "be sure to
insist on seeing Madame Walravens herself, and giving the basket into
her own hands, in order that there may be no mistake, for she is rather
a punctilious personage. Adieu! Au revoir!"

And at last I got away. The shop commissions took some time to execute,
that choosing and matching of silks and wools being always a tedious
business, but at last I got through my list. The patterns for the
slippers, the bell-ropes, the cabas were selected--the slides and
tassels for the purses chosen--the whole "tripotage," in short, was off
my mind; nothing but the fruit and the felicitations remained to be
attended to.

I rather liked the prospect of a long walk, deep into the old and grim
Basse-Ville; and I liked it no worse because the evening sky, over the
city, was settling into a mass of black-blue metal, heated at the rim,
and inflaming slowly to a heavy red.

I fear a high wind, because storm demands that exertion of strength and
use of action I always yield with pain; but the sullen down-fall, the
thick snow-descent, or dark rush of rain, ask only resignation--the
quiet abandonment of garments and person to be, drenched. In return, it
sweeps a great capital clean before you; it makes you a quiet path
through broad, grand streets; it petrifies a living city as if by
eastern enchantment; it transforms a Villette into a Tadmor. Let, then,
the rains fall, and the floods descend--only I must first get rid of
this basket of fruit.

An unknown clock from an unknown tower (Jean Baptiste's voice was now
too distant to be audible) was tolling the third quarter past five,
when I reached that street and house whereof Madame Beck had given me
the address. It was no street at all; it seemed rather to be part of a
square: it was quiet, grass grew between the broad grey flags, the
houses were large and looked very old--behind t