ight and shadow, gladdened the eyes. While all the rest
of Paris still sought warmth from its melancholy hearth, these two were
laughing in a bower of camellias, lilacs, and blossoming heath. Their
happy faces rose above lilies of the valley, narcissus blooms, and
Bengal roses. A mat of plaited African grass, variegated like a carpet,
lay beneath their feet in this luxurious conservatory. The walls,
covered with a green linen material, bore no traces of damp. The
surfaces of the rustic wooden furniture shone with cleanliness. A
kitten, attracted by the odor of milk, had established itself upon the
table; it allowed Pauline to bedabble it in coffee; she was playing
merrily with it, taking away the cream that she had just allowed the
kitten to sniff at, so as to exercise its patience, and keep up the
contest. She burst out laughing at every antic, and by the comical
remarks she constantly made, she hindered Raphael from perusing the
paper; he had dropped it a dozen times already. This morning picture
seemed to overflow with inexpressible gladness, like everything that is
natural and genuine.

Raphael, still pretending to read his paper, furtively watched Pauline
with the cat--his Pauline, in the dressing-gown that hung carelessly
about her; his Pauline, with her hair loose on her shoulders, with a
tiny, white, blue-veined foot peeping out of a velvet slipper. It was
pleasant to see her in this negligent dress; she was delightful as some
fanciful picture by Westall; half-girl, half-woman, as she seemed to
be, or perhaps more of a girl than a woman, there was no alloy in
the happiness she enjoyed, and of love she knew as yet only its first
ecstasy. When Raphael, absorbed in happy musing, had forgotten the
existence of the newspaper, Pauline flew upon it, crumpled it up into
a ball, and threw it out into the garden; the kitten sprang after the
rotating object, which spun round and round, as politics are wont to do.
This childish scene recalled Raphael to himself. He would have gone on
reading, and felt for the sheet he no longer possessed. Joyous laughter
rang out like the song of a bird, one peal leading to another.

"I am quite jealous of the paper," she said, as she wiped away the tears
that her childlike merriment had brought into her eyes. "Now, is it not
a heinous offence," she went on, as she became a woman all at once, "to
read Russian proclamations in my presence, and to attend to the prosings
of the Emperor Nichol