e of England," said Paragot.

* * * * *

After this it occurred to me that I might take more note of Melford and
its ways than I had done hitherto, and the more I observed it the less
did it appear to resemble either Eden or the Boulevard Saint-Michel. At
times I felt dull. I would lean over the parapet of the bridge at the
other end of the High Street, and watch the tower and decorated spire of
the old parish church rise from the gold and russet bosom of the
church-yard elms, and wish I were back on the Pont Neuf with the
tumultuous life of Paris around me. There was a lack of breeziness in
the social air of Melford.

Meanwhile Paragot and Joanna continued the romance of long ago. They
walked together in the garden like lovers, his arm around her waist, her
delicate head lightly leaning on his shoulder. Once when I made my
presence known, he withdrew his arm, but Joanna laughingly replaced it.

"What does it matter? Asticot is in our confidence," she remarked.
"Isn't he going to be your best man? You will bring him over for the
wedding, Gaston."

"You cling to the idea of being married in Melford?" he asked.

"Of course."

"By that dry, grey-whiskered gentleman who treats me as if I were a
youth he would like to prepare for confirmation? And all these dreadful
people to look on? My dear, doesn't the thought of it chill you into the
corpse of a Melfordian?"

"I should have imagined that so long as we were married the 'how' would
not matter to you."

"Quite so," said he. "Why does the 'how' matter so much to you?"

"It is different," said Joanna. "It is right for me to be married here."

"We must do what is right at all costs," assented my master in an
ironical note, which she was quick to detect. She swerved from his
encircling arm.

"You would not be married under a bush like a beggar?" she quoted.

"I wish to heaven I could!" he exclaimed with sudden spirit. "It is the
only way of mating. I would take you to a little village I know of in
the Vosges, overhanging a precipice, with God's mountains and sky above
us, and not a schedule of regulations for human conduct within thirty
miles, and Monsieur le Maire would tie his tricolor scarf around him and
marry us, and we would go away arm in arm and the cow-bells overhead
would ring the wedding peal, and there would be just you and I and the
universe."

"We'll compromise," said Joanna, smiling. "We'll spend our honeymoon in
y