had secured an easel, branding it myself in twenty places with
his name, and for whom I had engineered a good position next to mine in
the Life School--when I saw Ewing hugging Fanchette on the stairs, on
the very landing sacred to my embraces, I knew that Paragot was right,
and that Fanchette was just a fickle, naughty little model like the
others. But if Paragot had not taken her measure before my eyes at
Fontainebleau and made a figured drawing so to speak of her heart and
soul, shewing their exiguous dimensions, I might have cast myself
beneath the wheels of an omnibus like the pig Nepomucene, or blacked the
eyes of Ewing who was smaller than myself. As it was, I put my hands in
my trousers' pockets and surveyed the abashed couple in Paragot's best
manner.

"Amuse yourselves well, my children," I laughed, in French, and turned
away heart-whole.

This is an instance of the wisdom of Paragot. He smiled on the vanity of
my youth, and personally conducted me to the barrenness whither it led.
In this particular case the result was more positive still. Ewing in
admiration of my magnanimity at the time, and a fortnight later of my
profound knowledge of women--for he in his turn witnessed the alien
osculations of Fanchette--cultivated my friendship to the extent of
urging me to spend some of the summer recess at his father's country
vicarage in Somerset.

"But you'll have to get some other togs," said he, eyeing my attire
dubiously. "If you come like that to church on Sunday, my governor would
forget and want to baptise you. He was once a missionary, you know."

When I mentioned the invitation, Paragot insisted on acceptance.

"The Latin Quarter confers an exuberance of tone which conflicts with
the reposeful ideal of manners required in the _beau monde_ which I
destined you to grace when I took you from the maternal soapsuds. You
will find an English Parsonage exerts a repressive influence. But for
Heaven's sake don't fall in love with Ewing's eldest sister, who, I am
sure, is addicted to piety and good works. She will try to make a good
work of you and thus all my labour will have been in vain."

In his heart, however, I believe he was immensely proud at having
trained me to meet gentlefolk on more or less equal terms. Ewing's
invitation was a tribute to himself. To fit me for church on Sunday and
other functions of civilisation he took Ewing (as counsellor) and myself
to a tailor's and plunged enthusiastically int