o dream of her,
and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if
she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and
so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.

Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try
to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of
a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the
coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them
twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and
next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the
tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying
its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every
inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most
insignificant features of it,--a giant work ordained by a giant. Try,
imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but
the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the
veriest trifles,--how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert,
how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small
householder,--which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a
thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes
of the village and the town and the department. It was mere chance
that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest's reconnoitring
expedition,--a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can
allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl? Incapable of
being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all noble sentiments
in man.

We can readily guess the struggle of feeling to which this honest young
fellow fell a prey when we read the letter that he now indited, in which
every stroke of the flail which scourged his conscience will be found to
have left its trace.

This is what Modeste read a few days later, as she sat by her window on
a fine summer's day:--

Mademoiselle,--Without hypocrisy or evasion, _yes_, if I had been
certain that you possessed an immense fortune I should have acted
differently. Why? I have searched for the reason; here it is. We
have within us an inborn feeling, inordinately developed by social
life, which drives us to the pursuit and to the possession of
happiness. Most men confound happiness with the means that lead to
it; money in their eyes is the chief eleme