me again at five
in the morning to examine the state of the fastenings. Imagine their
astonishment and Gatien's delight when all four, candle in hand, and
with hardly any clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found them in
perfect preservation on both doors.

"Is it the same wax?" asked Monsieur Gravier.

"Are they the same hairs?" asked Lousteau.

"Yes," replied Gatien.

"This quite alters the matter!" cried Lousteau. "You have been beating
the bush for a will-o'-the-wisp."

Monsieur Gravier and Gatien exchanged questioning glances which were
meant to convey, "Is there not something offensive to us in that speech?
Ought we to laugh or to be angry?"

"If Dinah is virtuous," said the journalist in a whisper to Bianchon,
"she is worth an effort on my part to pluck the fruit of her first
love."

The idea of carrying by storm a fortress that had for nine years stood
out against the besiegers of Sancerre smiled on Lousteau.

With this notion in his head, he was the first to go down and into the
garden, hoping to meet his hostess. And this chance fell out all the
more easily because Madame de la Baudraye on her part wished to converse
with her critic. Half such chances are planned.

"You were out shooting yesterday, monsieur," said Madame de la Baudraye.
"This morning I am rather puzzled as to how to find you any new
amusement; unless you would like to come to La Baudraye, where you may
study more of our provincial life than you can see here, for you have
made but one mouthful of my absurdities. However, the saying about the
handsomest girl in the world is not less true of the poor provincial
woman!"

"That little simpleton Gatien has, I suppose, related to you a speech I
made simply to make him confess that he adored you," said Etienne.
"Your silence, during dinner the day before yesterday and throughout the
evening, was enough to betray one of those indiscretions which we never
commit in Paris.--What can I say? I do not flatter myself that you
will understand me. In fact, I laid a plot for the telling of all those
stories yesterday solely to see whether I could rouse you and Monsieur
de Clagny to a pang of remorse.--Oh! be quite easy; your innocence is
fully proved.

"If you had the slightest fancy for that estimable magistrate, you would
have lost all your value in my eyes.--I love perfection.

"You do not, you cannot love that cold, dried-up, taciturn little
usurer on wine casks and land, who would le