autiful lemonade-girl
of the cafe of the Milles Colonnnes, and several other poor creatures
who flattened more noses, young and old, against the window-panes of
milliners, confectioners, and linen-drapers, than there are stones in
the streets of Paris.

The head-clerk of "The Queen of Roses," living between Saint-Roch
and the Rue de la Sourdiere, knew nothing of the existence of the
Petit-Matelot; for the smaller trades of Paris are more or less
strangers to each other. Cesar was so vigorously smitten by the beauty
of Constance that he rushed furiously into the shop to buy six linen
shirts, disputing the price a long time, and requiring volumes of linen
to be unfolded and shown to him, precisely like an Englishwoman in the
humor for "shopping." The young person deigned to take notice of Cesar,
perceiving, by certain symptoms known to women, that he came more for
the seller than the goods. He dictated his name and address to the young
lady, who grew very indifferent to the admiration of her customer once
the purchase was made. The poor clerk had had little to do to win the
good graces of Ursula; in such matters he was as silly as a sheep, and
love now made him sillier. He dared not utter a word, and was moreover
too dazzled to observe the indifference which succeeded the smiles of
the siren shopwoman.

For eight succeeding days Cesar mounted guard every evening before the
Petit-Matelot, watching for a look as a dog waits for a bone at
the kitchen door, indifferent to the derision of the clerks and the
shop-girls, humbly stepping aside for the buyers and passers-by, and
absorbed in the little revolving world of the shop. Some days later he
again entered the paradise of his angel, less to purchase handkerchiefs
than to communicate to her a luminous idea.

"If you should have need of perfumery, Mademoiselle, I could furnish you
in the same manner," he said as he paid for the handkerchiefs.

Constance Pillerault was daily receiving brilliant proposals, in which
there was no question of marriage; and though her heart was as pure
as her forehead was white, it was only after six months of marches
and counter-marches, in the course of which Cesar revealed his
inextinguishable love, that she condescended to receive his attentions,
and even then without committing herself to an answer,--a prudence
suggested by the number of her swains, wholesale wine-merchants, rich
proprietors of cafes, and others who made soft eyes at her. T