o set him at his ease, to get him to chide.

"Maladroit!" he cried at last, "she will make mincemeat of her hands."

He put Sylvie down, making her lie quiet beside his bonnet-grec, and,
depriving me of the pens and penknife, proceeded to slice, nib, and
point with the accuracy and celerity of a machine.

"Did I like the little book?" he now inquired.

Suppressing a yawn, I said I hardly knew.

"Had it moved me?"

"I thought it had made me a little sleepy."

(After a pause:) "Allons donc! It was of no use taking that tone with
him. Bad as I was--and he should be sorry to have to name all my faults
at a breath--God and nature had given me 'trop de sensibilite et de
sympathie' not to be profoundly affected by an appeal so touching."

"Indeed!" I responded, rousing myself quickly, "I was not affected at
all--not a whit."

And in proof, I drew from my pocket a perfectly dry handkerchief, still
clean and in its folds.

Hereupon I was made the object of a string of strictures rather piquant
than polite. I listened with zest. After those two days of unnatural
silence, it was better than music to hear M. Paul haranguing again just
in his old fashion. I listened, and meantime solaced myself and Sylvie
with the contents of a bonbonniere, which M. Emanuel's gifts kept well
supplied with chocolate comfits: It pleased him to see even a small
matter from his hand duly appreciated. He looked at me and the spaniel
while we shared the spoil; he put up his penknife. Touching my hand
with the bundle of new-cut quills, he said:--"Dites donc, petite
soeur--speak frankly--what have you thought of me during the last two
days?"

But of this question I would take no manner of notice; its purport made
my eyes fill. I caressed Sylvie assiduously. M. Paul, leaning--over the
desk, bent towards me:--"I called myself your brother," he said: "I
hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think
of you--I feel I wish, you well--but I must check myself; you are to be
feared. My best friends point out danger, and whisper caution."

"You do right to listen to your friends. By all means be cautious."

"It is your religion--your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed,
whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed
panoply. You are good--Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you--but
your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It
expresses itself by your eye at times; and again, it