as suffering these
mental torments for Therese's sake, when the appearance, or rather the
non-appearance, of my mysterious neighbor aggravated and complicated the
symptoms and converted my slow fever into an intermittent. I had called
my fair unknown Hermine;--the pronoun _she_, as it applied equally to
every individual of the female sex, and in the French language to many
things besides, soon became insufficient, and I took the liberty of
calling her Hermine. I was so ashamed of my foolish passion, that I
could not make up my mind even to question the porter at the door with
regard to her, nor to consult any of my better initiated acquaintances
as to the proper course to be pursued, but lived out a wretched
succession of days and nights of feverish anxiety and expectation,--of
what I knew not.

I was on my way over the Pont Royal, one evening, at my usual hour,
and was just coming in sight of my bewitching flower-merchant, when
a sudden, and, as I believed, a happy thought occurred to me, and I
resolved to put it into instant execution. I am sure I blushed and
stammered wofully as I asked for _two_ bunches of flowers instead of my
usual one, and I was confident, that, as she handed them to me without a
word, but with such a look, Therese's brow was shaded by something more
than the dark bands of her brown hair or the edge of her becoming cap,
and that her lip quivered rather with a suppressed sigh than with her
usual happy smile. I didn't stop to speak with her that night, but
hurried away towards my room, conscious--for I did not dare to look
behind me, or I am sure I should have relinquished my design--that her
large, sorrowful eyes were full of the tears she had kept back while I
had stood before her.

I reached my room as soon as possible, and, after assuring myself that
my neighbor was still absent, carefully inserted my second nosegay
into her keyhole, and rushed from the house as though I had committed
burglary.

I was very young then, very romantic, and wholly wanting in assurance.
I must have been, or I should never have regarded it as a crime, not
against myself, but others, that I was making my days miserable and my
nights sleepless on account of two young girls, one of whom I had never
seen, and the other of whom was merely a flower-merchant.

When I clambered up to my room late that night, the flowers were no
longer where I had put them. I had been torturing myself all the evening
with the thought tha