ught to have
been this morning)--could read writing as well as either you or I. So
what does he do, on obtaining the nosegay, but examine it well. The
stalks of the flowers were tied up with slips of matting in wet moss.
Pierre undid the strings, unwrapped the moss, and out fell a piece of wet
paper, with the writing all blurred with moisture. It was but a torn
piece of writing-paper, apparently, but Pierre's wicked mischievous eyes
read what was written on it,--written so as to look like a
fragment,--'Ready, every and any night at nine. All is prepared. Have
no fright. Trust one who, whatever hopes he might once have had, is
content now to serve you as a faithful cousin;' and a place was named,
which I forget, but which Pierre did not, as it was evidently the
rendezvous. After the lad had studied every word, till he could say it
off by heart, he placed the paper where he had found it, enveloped it in
moss, and tied the whole up again carefully. Virginie's face coloured
scarlet as she received it. She kept smelling at it, and trembling: but
she did not untie it, although Pierre suggested how much fresher it would
be if the stalks were immediately put into water. But once, after his
back had been turned for a minute, he saw it untied when he looked round
again, and Virginie was blushing, and hiding something in her bosom.

"Pierre was now all impatience to set off and find his cousin, But his
mother seemed to want him for small domestic purposes even more than
usual; and he had chafed over a multitude of errands connected with the
Hotel before he could set off and search for his cousin at his usual
haunts. At last the two met and Pierre related all the events of the
morning to Morin. He said the note off word by word. (That lad this
morning had something of the magpie look of Pierre--it made me shudder to
see him, and hear him repeat the note by heart.) Then Morin asked him to
tell him all over again. Pierre was struck by Morin's heavy sighs as he
repeated the story. When he came the second time to the note, Morin
tried to write the words down; but either he was not a good, ready
scholar, or his fingers trembled too much. Pierre hardly remembered,
but, at any rate, the lad had to do it, with his wicked reading and
writing. When this was done, Morin sat heavily silent. Pierre would
have preferred the expected outburst, for this impenetrable gloom
perplexed and baffled him. He had even to speak to his co