"And, Marie, on thy return, my child, bring me an absinthe." We left this gentleman in a condition of ostentatious languor, and Marie deposited me in a pretty room overlooking an exquisite little garden set round with beds of verbena and scarlet geranium, with a fountain sparkling in the midst.

This garden was planted in what had once been the courtyard, of the building.

The trees nodded and whispered, and the windows at the opposite side of the quadrangle glittered like burnished gold in the sunlight.

I threw open the jalousies, plucked one of the white roses that clustered outside, and drank in with delight the sunny perfumed air that played among the leaves, and scattered the waters of the fountain.

I could not long rest thus, however.