e put all together
in a box with a rose-colored favor. He did all this slowly, as if
affected; then he gave me the box.

"It is a pretty present, Joseph," said he. "Catharine ought to think
herself happy in having such a lover as you. She is a good girl. Now
we can take our supper. Set the table."

The table was arranged, and then Monsieur Goulden took from a closet a
bottle of his Metz wine, which he kept for great occasions, and we
supped like old friends, rather than as master and apprentice; all the
evening he never stopped speaking of the merry days of his youth;
telling me how he once had a sweetheart, but that, in 1792, he left
home in the _levee en masse_ at the time of the Prussian invasion, and
that on his return to Fenetrange, he found her married--a very natural
thing, since he had never mustered courage enough to declare his love.
However, this did not prevent his remaining faithful to the tender
remembrance, and when he spoke of it he seemed sad indeed. I recounted
all this in imagination to Catharine, and it was not until the stroke
of ten, at the passage of the rounds, which relieved the sentries on
post every twenty minutes on account of the great cold, that we put two
good logs on the fire, and at length went to bed.

III

The next day, the 18th of December, I arose about six in the morning.
It was terribly cold; my little window was covered with a sheet of
frost.

I had taken care the night before to lay out on the back of a chair my
sky-blue coat, my trousers, my goat-skin vest, and my fine black silk
cravat. Everything was ready; my well-polished shoes lay at the foot
of the bed; I had only to dress myself; but the cold I felt upon my
face, the sight of those window-panes, and the deep silence without,
made me shiver in anticipation. If it had not been Catharine's
birthday, I would have remained in bed until midday; but suddenly that
recollection made me jump out of bed, and rush to the great delf stove,
where some embers of the preceding night almost always remained among
the cinders. I found two or three, and hastened to collect and put
them under some split wood and two large logs, after which I ran back
to my bed.

Monsieur Goulden, under the huge curtains, with the coverings pulled up
to his nose and his cotton night-cap over his eyes, woke up, and cried
out:

"Joseph, we have not had such cold for forty years. I never felt it
so. What a winter we shall have!"

I di