ard to concoct some polite remark about ballets in
general and this one in particular, when the intermission ended and she
was again entirely absorbed in the spectacle below.

"A thought flashed through my mind, which, as you will acknowledge, did
me great credit, but unfortunately met with no success. I left the box,
ate the ice-cream already mentioned, and while wiping my beard,
strolled up and down the corridor several times as if weary of the
performance, and carelessly asked the doorkeeper if he knew the lady
who was sitting in the stranger's box. But he replied that this was the
first time he had ever seen her; the opera-house had been reopened
to-night with the new ballet. So, with my purpose unaccomplished, I
retired, and went back to my post.

[Illustration: "As she glided past me, I felt an electric shock to the
very tips of my toes."]

"Meantime my seat had been occupied; a very much over-dressed foreign
couple, American or English nabobs blazing with jewels, had planted
themselves in the best seats beside the beauty. At first I was inclined
to assert my rights, but I really liked to stand in the dark corner and
seeing and hearing nothing of the elegant tastelessness around, gaze
only at the charming shape of the head, the fair neck with its floating
curls, slender shoulders, and a small portion of the sweet face. I
heard the gentleman address her in broken French. She replied without
embarrassment, in the best Parisian accent. Now I knew what I wanted to
learn. She was a natural enemy, in every sense of the word!

"If I tell you, brother, that during the next two hours I stood like a
statue, thinking of nothing except how one can live to be twenty-nine
years old, before understanding the meaning of the old legend of the
serpent in Paradise,--you will fancy me half mad. You wrong me, my dear
fellow, I was _wholly_ mad--a frightful example of the perishableness
of all manly virtues. I beg Father Wieland's pardon a hundred times,
for having reviled him as a pitiful coxcomb, because he allows his
Greek sages, with all their strength of mind and stoical dignity, to
come to disgrace for the smile of a Lais or Musarion. Here there was
not even a smile, no seductive arts were used, and yet a poor private
tutor of philosophy lays down his arms and surrenders at discretion,
because a saucy little nose, some black eyelashes, and ditto curls, did
not take the slightest notice of him.

"But you ought to go to sleep,