uzette were here?

He opened the book of familiar French phrases, and began to copy some of
them. He worked feverishly, determinedly, for quite a time. Then he read
the list he had made, half aloud. It was this:

"Good-morning, my pretty one!"

"Will you walk with me?"

"May I have your company to dinner?"

"What is your name?"

"I dare say you laugh at my pronunciation."

"I am lonely in Paris."

"Are you?"

"You ought to see my chambers."

"Let me buy you a bracelet!"

"I love you!"

Ralph's voice stopped suddenly. There were deep echoes in the great
room, which made him thrill and shudder. How still and terrible were the
silence and loneliness!

A pang, half of guilt, half of fear, went keenly to his heart. It seemed
to him that his mother was standing by his shoulder, pointing with her
thin, tremulous fingers to the writing beneath him, and saying:

"My boy, what does this mean?"

He held it in the candle-flame, and thought he felt better when it was
burned; but he could not burn all those thoughts of which the paper was
only a copy.

PART II.

POSSESSION.

If the _cremery_ had seemed lonely by gaslight, what must Ralph Flare
have said of it next morning, as he sat in his old place and watched the
_ouvriers_ at breakfast? They came in, one by one, with their baton of
brown bread, and called for two sous' worth of coffee and milk. The men
wore blouses of blue and white, and jested after the Gallic code with
the sewing-girls. This bread and coffee, and a pear which they should
eat at noon, would give them strength to labor till nightfall brought
its frugal repast. Yet they were happy as crickets, and a great deal
more noisy.

Here is little Suzette, smiling and skipping, and driving her glances
straight into Ralph Flare's heart.

"Good-day, sir," she cries, and takes a chair close by him, after the
manner of a sparrow alighting. She smooths back her pure wristbands,
disclosing the grace of the arm, and as she laughs in Ralph's face he
knows what she is saying to herself; it is more doubtful that he loves
her than that she knows it.

"_Peut-etre, monsieur, vous-avez besoin des gants?_"

She gave him the card of her _boutique_, and laughed like a sunbeam
playing on a rivulet, and went out singing like the witch that she was.

"I don't want gloves," said Ralph Flare; "I won't go to her shop."

But he asked Pere George the direction, notwithstanding; and though his
conscience seem