me at a
window which overlooks a gloomy courtyard containing a twisted old fig
tree; third, those who also study at home in a bright little room whose
window commands a view of the street.

I belonged to that third class whom Topffer considers extraordinarily
privileged, and as likely, in consequence, to grow up into happy men.
My room was upon the first floor, and it opened into the street; it had
white curtains, and its green paper was embellished with bouquets of
white roses. Near the window was my work desk, and above it, upon a
book-shelf, was my very much neglected library.

In fine weather I always opened this window, but I kept my venetian
blinds half-closed, so that I might look out without having my idleness
seen, and reported by a meddlesome neighbor. Morning and evening I
glanced to the end of the quiet street that stretched its sunny length
between the white country houses and lost itself among the old trees
growing beyond the ramparts. I could see from there the occasional
passers-by, all well known to me, the neighborhood cats that prowled
within doorways or upon house-tops, the swifts darting about in the warm
air, and the swallows skimming along the dusty street. . . . Oh! how
many hours have I spent at that window feeling like a caged sparrow, my
spirit filled with vague reverie; and meantime my ink-blotted copy-book
lay open before me, but no inspiration would come, and the composition
that I was engaged upon got itself finished very laboriously,--often not
at all.

And before long I began to play tricks upon the pedestrians, a fatal
result of my idleness over which I often felt remorseful.

I am bound to confess that my great friend Lucette was usually a willing
assistant in these pranks. Although now almost a young lady sixteen or
seventeen years of age, she was at times almost as much of a child as I.
"You must never tell any one!" she would say with an irrepressible smile
of mischief in her merry eyes (but I may tell now after so many years
have passed, now that the flowers of twenty summers have bloomed upon
her grave).

Our pranks consisted of taking cherry stems, plum stones and any sort
of trash, and wrapping them neatly into white or pink paper parcels that
looked very attractive to the eye; we then threw these bundles into the
street and hid ourselves behind the shutters to see who picked them up.

Sometimes we would write letters, impertinent or incoherent ones, with
accompanying dra