For some days the doll was constantly present to my mind, danced before my eyes, gazed at me, opened its arms to me, assumed in my imagination a kind of life, which made it mysterious and terrible to me, and all the more dear and desirable.

At last one day, a day which I shall never forget, my nurse took me to the house of my uncle, Captain Victor, who had invited me to lunch. I had a great admiration for my uncle, the captain, as much because he had fired the last shot on the French side at Waterloo, as because with his own hands at my mother's table he rubbed the garlic over the pieces of bread which he afterwards

put

in the endive salad. I thought that very grand. My uncle Victor also produced a great impression upon me by his braided frockcoats, and, above all, by a certain way he had of turning the house upside down directly he entered it. Even now, I do not know very well how he managed it, but I declare that when my Uncle Victor was in a company of twenty people, one saw and heard only him.

My excellent

father did not, I believe, share my admiration

for

Uncle Victor, who poisoned him with his pipe, gave him great slaps on the back

by way of friendship, and accused him of lacking energy. My mother, while treating the captain with sisterly indulgence, advised him sometimes to show less fondness for the brandy-bottle.

But I had no sympathy with these dislikes and reproaches, and was an enthusiastic admirer of my uncle. It was therefore with a feeling of pride that I entered the little dwelling which he occupied in Rue Guénégaud. The lunch was laid out on a little table at the corner of the fire, and consisted entirely of pork and sweetmeats.

The captain gorged me with cakes and wine, unmixed with water. He spoke to me about the

numerous cases in which he had been the victim of injustice. He complained, especially, of the Bourbons, and as he neglected to tell me who the Bourbons were, I imagined, I do not know why, that the Bourbons were horse-dealers settled at Waterloo. The captain, who only stopped to fill our glasses, denounced, besides, a host of scurvy fellows, rogues, and good-for-nothings, whom I did not know at all, and whom I hated with my whole heart. At dessert I thought I heard the captain say that my father was a man whom people led by the nose; but I am not quite sure that I heard aright. There were buzzing noises in my ears, and it seemed to me that the

great legs. "Uncle," said I, "will you buy me that doll?" And I waited.

"Buy a doll for a boy!" exclaimed my uncle, in a voice like thunder. "Do you wish to disgrace yourself? And it is that fright there, too, which has taken your fancy. I congratulate you, my friend. If you keep to such tastes, you will not have much pleasure in life, and your comrades will call you a confounded ninny. you asked me for a sword, a musket, I should pay for them, my boy, with the last silver crown of my pension. But, pay for a doll for you a thousand thunders! disgrace you-never! If I

If

were to see you playing with a pack-thread creature like that, sir nephew, I should disown you!"

As I listened to these words my heart was so sore that pride, diabolical pride, alone kept me from crying.

My uncle, calming down suddenly, returned to his opinions of the Bourbons; but as for me, overwhelmed by his indignation, I felt an unspeakable shame. My mind was soon made up. I determined not to disgrace myself; firmly and for ever I renounced the doll with red cheeks.

On that day I experienced the austere luxury of sacrifice.

Captain, it is true that in your lifetime you swore like a pagan, smoked like a Swiss, and drank like a bellringer, nevertheless all honour to your memory, not only because you were a brave soldier, but also

because you revealed to your nephew in petticoats the first idea of heroism! Pride and indolence had made you almost unbearable, Uncle

Victor; but a

great heart beat under your braided frock

coat. I remember you used to wear a rose in your buttonhole. That flower, which I now believe you allowed the shop-girls to pluck, that great full-blown

flower, which

scattered its leaves in all directions, was the emblem of your glorious youth. You despised neither absinthe nor tobacco, but you despised life. Good sense and delicacy were not to be learned from you, captain, but, at an age when my nurse had still to blow my nose for me, you gave me a lesson in honour and self-denial which I shall never forget.

You have long been at rest in the cemetery of Mont-Parnasse, under a humble slab, which bears this epitaph:

Here lies

ARISTIDE-VICTOR MALDENT, Captain of Infantry, Knight of the Legion of Honour.

The

trees of the avenue unfold in

the spring sunshine their first leaves, still pale and chilly. The carriages roll past me to the Bois de Boulogne. Without being aware of it, I have extended my walk to this worldly avenue, and have stopped stupidly in front of a stall in the open air, on which are displayed cakes of ginger-bread

and decanters full of cocoa, with lemons for corks. A poor little fellow, with his chapped skin showing through his covering of rags, is gazing eagerly at these sumptuous luxuries which are not for him. He shows his longing with the openness of innocence. His round eyes are steadily contemplating a ginger-bread man of tall stature. He is a general, and has some resemblance to my Uncle Victor. I take him, pay for him, and hold him out to the poor little boy, who dares not put out his hand to take him, for, by precocious experience, he has learnt not to believe in good luck; he looks at me with that expression which is seen in big

dogs, and which means-"It is cruel of you to make fun of me."

"Come, you little fool," said I to him in my usual peevish tone, "take, take and eat, since, more fortunate than I was at your age, you can satisfy your tastes without disgracing yourself. And you, Uncle Victor, you of whose manly face this ginger-bread general reminded me, come, glorious shade, and make me forget my new doll. We are always children, and we are always running after new playthings."

The Same Day.

It is most strange how the Coccoz family is associated in my mind with clerk Alexander.

"Thérèse," said I, throwing myself into my arm-chair, "tell me if young Coccoz is well, and has got his first teeth, and give me my slippers."

"He must have got them, sir," answered Thérèse, "but I have not seen them. On the first fine spring day, the mother disappeared with the child, leaving behind furniture and clothes. Thirtyeight empty pomade pots were found in her garret. The porter's niece says that she met her on the boulevards in a carriage. I told you she would come to a bad end."

"Thérèse," answered I, "this young woman has neither come to a bad end nor a good one. Wait till the close of her life before you judge her. And take care not to gossip too much with the porter's wife. Madame Coccoz, whom I only caught sight of once on the staircase, seemed to me to love her child well. That love ought to

be reckoned in her favour."

"For that matter, sir, the little one wanted for nothing. You could not have found a single child in the whole neighbourhood better fed, curled, and dressed up, than he was. She puts a clean bib on him every blessed day, and sings songs to him that make him laugh from morning till night."

"Thérèse, a poet has said: The child whose mother has not smiled upon him is neither worthy of the table of kings nor of the smiles of queens."

8th July, 1852.

Having learnt that the pavement of the Virgin's chapel at Germain-des-Prés was being repaired, I went to the church in the hope of finding that some inscriptions had been laid bare by the workmen. I was not disappointed. The architect kindly showed me a stone which he had placed sideways against the wall. I knelt down to see the inscription engraved upon the stone, and in a low voice I read, in the dim light of the old apse, these words, which made my heart beat :

Here lies Alexander, monk of this church, who had the chins of Saint Vincent and Saint Amant and the foot of the Innocents done in silver; in his lifetime he was brave and valiant. Pray for his soul.

With my handkerchief I gently wiped off the dust which soiled this memorial slab; I would willingly have kissed it.

"It is he; it is Alexander!" I exclaimed, and from the summit of the vaulted roof, that name resounded in my ears with a crash, as if broken.

The grave and stolid face of the verger, whom I saw advancing towards me, made me ashamed of my enthusiasm, and I escaped.

Nevertheless it was, indeed, my Alexander; there was no doubt about it; the translator of the "Golden Legendary," the author of the "Lives of Saints Germain, Vincent, Ferréol, Ferrution, and Droctovée," was, as I had thought, a monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. And what a good monk, moreover; how pious and generous! He caused a silver chin, a silver head, and a silver foot to be made, so that the precious remains might be enveloped in an incorruptible covering! But shall I ever be able to become acquainted with his work, or must this new discovery only increase my regret?

20th August, 1859.

"I, that please some, try all-both joy and terror of good and bad-that make and unfold error-now take upon me to use my wings. Impute it not a crime to me, or my swift passage, that I slide o'er the years."

Who speaks thus? An old man, whom I know too well; his name is Time.

Shakespeare, having ended the third act of "A Winter's Tale," pauses in order to allow the little Perdita time to grow in wisdom and beauty, and when he raises the curtain again, he evokes the ancient scythe-bearer to account for the long days which have weighed upon the head of jealous Leontes.

I have left in this journal, like Shakespeare in his comedy, a long interval in oblivion, and, following the poet's example, I make Time intervene to explain the lapse of seven years. Seven years have indeed passed away without my having written a line in this book, and resuming my pen now I have not, alas! to describe a Perdita grown in grace." Youth and beauty are the faithful companions of the poets; but these charming phantoms bestow but a passing visit on us ordinary people. We cannot make them settle with us. If the shade of some Perdita were to be seized with the unbecoming fancy to traverse my brains, she would bruise herself horribly against piles of shrivelled parchment. Happy poets! their white hairs do not terrify the shades of Helens, Francescas, Juliets, Julias, and Dorotheas. And the nose alone of Sylvestre Bonnard would put to flight the whole swarm of enamoured ladies of story.

Nevertheless I, too, have felt the influence of beauty; I, too, have experienced the mysterious charm which incomprehensible nature has imparted to animate forms; a piece of living clay has produced in me the thrill which makes lovers and poets. But I have been unable to love or to sing. In my heart, buried under a jumbled heap of old texts and formulæ, I find, as it were, a

You will remember from whom this question came, and the circumstances which gave rise to it. It was put by St. Peter, always foremost both in speech and deed, always impatient of reserve and delay. He had just heard from his risen Lord a solemn prediction of his own future. In words half clear, half figurative, he had been given to understand that the liberty of his earlier life was to be exchanged in later days for close constraint as the preparation for a violent end. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest but when thou shalt be old, another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." We know that there was a time when such a prophecy would have drawn from Peter some confident expression of readiness, some eager boast of strength equal to any demand. But not so now. How vehemently he had vowed that he would go with his Master to prison and to death, and that though all should desert Him, yet would not he: nay, that he would

Νο

lay down his life for His sake. But there was no protesting, no rash promising now. Peter had been cured of his self-confidence by that terrible experience of which we shall be again and again reminded in the services of this Holy Week. doubt in the strength of that intense love which he had called upon the risen Jesus to witness, he bravely accepted the fate marked out for him: he felt equal to the stern lesson in store for him. But he does not dare to say so. He has not a word to utter about himself. His thoughts are diverted at once from himself to his fellow-disciple and dearest friend. What was to become of him, that beloved partner both of his earthly and of his heavenly calling, the man whom Jesus loved with so special and so personal a love? Might not his future, too, be unveiled? "Lord," he cries, turning round and pointing to him, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" But the inquiry is put back with a touch of rebuke which could not be mistaken-" If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me."