ith its
powerful yet childlike hand from the grave in which I slept. You
have wakened me as the sun wakens the flowers. The eyes of your
beloved are no longer those of the little Modeste so daring in her
ignorance,--no, they are dimmed with the sight of happiness, and
the lids close over them. To-day I tremble lest I can never
deserve my fate. The king has come in his glory; my lord has now a
subject who asks pardon for the liberties she has taken, like the
gambler with loaded dice after cheating Monsieur de Grammont.

My cherished poet! I will be thy Mignon--happier far than the
Mignon of Goethe, for thou wilt leave me in mine own land,--in thy
heart. Just as I write this pledge of our betrothal a nightingale
in the Vilquin park answers for thee. Ah, tell me quick that his
note, so pure, so clear, so full, which fills my heart with joy
and love like an Annunciation, does not lie to me.

My father will pass through Paris on his way from Marseilles; the
house of Mongenod, with whom he corresponds, will know his
address. Go to him, my Melchior, tell him that you love me; but do
not try to tell him how I love you,--let that be forever between
ourselves and God. I, my dear one, am about to tell everything to
my mother. Her heart will justify my conduct; she will rejoice in
our secret poem, so romantic, human and divine in one.

You have the confession of the daughter; you must now obtain the
consent of the Comte de La Bastie, father of your

Modeste.

P.S.--Above all, do not come to Havre without having first
obtained my father's consent. If you love me you will not fail to
find him on his way through Paris.

"What are you doing, up at this hour, Mademoiselle Modeste?" said the
voice of Dumay at her door.

"Writing to my father," she answered; "did you not tell me you should
start in the morning?"

Dumay had nothing to say to that, and he went to bed, while Modeste
wrote another long letter, this time to her father.

On the morrow, Francois Cochet, terrified at seeing the Havre postmark
on the envelope which Ernest had mailed the night before, brought her
young mistress the following letter and took away the one which Modeste
had written:--

To Mademoiselle O. d'Este M.,--My heart tells me that you were the
woman so carefully veiled and disguised, and seated between
Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, who have but one child, a son.
Ah, my love, if yo