sitor. This gentleman had dismounted, and as he stood behind his
horse arranging the martingale, he was for the moment unrecognisable.

"Will you permit me to remain in the garden, my dear Miss
Belle-bouche, until your visitor has departed?" said Sir Asinus. "I
find myself suddenly smitten with a love of nature--and I would
trouble you not to mention the fact of my presence. It will be
useless."

"Certainly I will not, sir," said Belle-bouche.

And Sir Asinus, seeing the gentleman move, precipitately entered the
garden, where he ignominiously concealed himself--having snatched up a
volume of poems to console him in his retirement.

The visitor was Jacques.

He entered with his soft melancholy smile, and approaching
Belle-bouche, pressed her hand to his lips.

"I am glad to see you so bright," he said; "but you always look
blooming."

And he sat down and gazed around sadly.

Perhaps Jacques had never before so closely resembled a tulip. His
coat was red, his waistcoat scarlet, his lace yellow, his stockings
white; his shoes, lastly, were adorned with huge rosettes, and his wig
was a perfect snow-storm of powder.

Belle-bouche casts down her eyes, and a roseate bloom diffuses itself
over her tender cheek. Jacques arrays his forces, and gracefully
smooths his Mechlin lace cravat. Outwardly he is calm.

Belle-bouche raises her eyes, and gently flirts her fan, covered with
shepherds and shepherdesses in silks and satins, who tend imaginary
sheep by sky-blue waters, against deeply emerald trees.

Jacques sighs, remembering his discourse on crooks, and Belle-bouche
smiles. He gathers courage then, and says:

"I think I have never seen a more beautiful morning."

"Yes," says Belle-bouche in her soft tender voice, "I have been out to
take my customary walk before breakfast."

"An excellent habit. The fields are the true abodes of the Graces and
Muses; all is so fresh."

Belle-bouche smiles at this graceful and classic compliment; but
strange to say, does not feel disposed to criticise it. Jacques has
never seemed to her so intellectual a man, so true a gentleman as at
this moment. The reason is that Belle-bouche has caught a portion of
her visitor's disease--a paraphrase which we are compelled to make use
of, from the well-known fact that damsels are never what is vulgarly
called "in love," until the momentous question has been asked; after
which, as we all know, this sentiment floods their tender hearts with