cover, as it flits across the sight; she loved
those magic colors, like sparkling jewels dazzling to the eye, which
youth can see, and never sees again when Reality, the hideous hag,
appears with witnesses accompanied by the mayor. To live the very poetry
of love and not to see the lover--ah, what sweet intoxication! what
visionary rapture! a chimera with flowing man and outspread wings!

The following is the puerile and even silly event which decided the
future life of this young girl.

Modeste happened to see in a bookseller's window a lithographic portrait
of one of her favorites, Canalis. We all know what lies such pictures
tell,--being as they are the result of a shameless speculation, which
seizes upon the personality of celebrated individuals as if their faces
were public property.

In this instance Canalis, sketched in a Byronic pose, was offering to
public admiration his dark locks floating in the breeze, a bare throat,
and the unfathomable brow which every bard ought to possess. Victor
Hugo's forehead will make more persons shave their heads than the
number of incipient marshals ever killed by the glory of Napoleon.
This portrait of Canalis (poetic through mercantile necessity) caught
Modeste's eye. The day on which it caught her eye one of Arthez's best
books happened to be published. We are compelled to admit, though it may
be to Modeste's injury, that she hesitated long between the illustrious
poet and the illustrious prose-writer. Which of these celebrated men was
free?--that was the question.

Modeste began by securing the co-operation of Francoise Cochet, a maid
taken from Havre and brought back again by poor Bettina, whom Madame
Mignon and Madame Dumay now employed by the day, and who lived in Havre.
Modeste took her to her own room and assured her that she would never
cause her parents any grief, never pass the bounds of a young girl's
propriety, and that as to Francoise herself she would be well provided
for after the return of Monsieur Mignon, on condition that she would do
a certain service and keep it an inviolable secret. What was it? Why, a
nothing--perfectly innocent. All that Modeste wanted of her accomplice
was to put certain letters into the post at Havre and to bring some
back which would be directed to herself, Francoise Cochet. The treaty
concluded, Modeste wrote a polite note to Dauriat, publisher of the
poems of Canalis, asking, in the interest of that great poet, for some
particular