ld go outside together in the
park. He would stop quickly before a clearing where the white vapor of
the moon lights the woods, and he would press my hand, saying: 'Look!
look! but you don't understand me; I feel it. If you understood me, we
should be happy. One must love to know! I would laugh and then kiss this
child, who loved me madly.

"Often, after dinner, he would sit on my mother's knees. 'Come, auntie,'
he would say, 'tell me some love-stories.' And my mother, as a joke,
would tell him all the old legends of the family, all the passionate
adventures of his forefathers, for thousands of them were current, some
true and some false. It was their reputation for love and gallantry
which was the ruin of every one of these-men; they gloried in it and
then thought that they had to live up to the renown of their house.

"The little fellow became exalted by these tender or terrible stories,
and at times he would clap his hands, crying: 'I, too, I, too, know how
to love, better than all of them!'

"Then, he began to court me in a timid and tender manner, at which every
one laughed, it was, so amusing. Every morning I had some flowers picked
by him, and every evening before going to his room he would kiss my hand
and murmur: 'I love you!'

"I was guilty, very guilty, and I grieved continually about it, and I
have been doing penance all my life; I have remained an old maid--or,
rather, I have lived as a widowed fiancee, his widow.

"I was amused at this childish tenderness, and I even encouraged him.
I was coquettish, as charming as with a man, alternately caressing
and severe. I maddened this child. It was a game for me and a joyous
diversion for his mother and mine. He was twelve! think of it! Who would
have taken this atom's passion seriously? I kissed him as often as he
wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our respective
mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I have kept.
Judging himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy was
secret. We had forgotten that he was a Santeze.

"This lasted for about a year. One evening in the park he fell at my
feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he kept repeating: 'I
love you! I love you! I love you! If ever you deceive me, if ever you
leave me for another, I'll do as my father did.' And he added in a
hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver: 'You know what he did!'

"I stood there astonished. He arose, and standing on the