n was beginning, and it was a
warm, bright, summer day. On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one
who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyes in the
name of the four: "It is a good hour to emerge from happiness." That
is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to
Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed, "This
must be very beautiful when there is water!" They breakfasted at the
Tete-Noir, where Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a
game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain;
they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the
roulette establishment of the Pont de Sevres, picked bouquets at
Pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and
were perfectly happy.

The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their
cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little
taps on the young men. Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years!
the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not
remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the
branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you?
Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a beloved
woman holding your hand, and crying, "Ah, my new boots! what a state
they are in!"

Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in
the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they
set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, "The slugs are crawling
in the paths,--a sign of rain, children."

All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then famous, a good
fellow who had an Eleonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he strolled
that day beneath the chestnut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them pass about
ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many of
them," as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle's friend, the
one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great
green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and
presided over this merry-making with the spirit of a young female faun.
Zephine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that
they set each off when they were together, and completed each other,
never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from
friendship, and cling