and the rest is a dream.  Fix your charming eyes on me; think of what love can do, when I who suffer so cruelly, who must stand in fear of every thing, feel, nevertheless, an inexpressible joy in writing you this mad letter, which will perhaps bring down your anger upon me.  But think also, mademoiselle that you are a little to blame for this, my folly.  Why did you drop that bouquet?  Put yourself for an instant, if possible, in my place; I dare think that you love me, and I dare ask you to tell me so.  Forgive me, I beseech you.  I would give my life’s blood to be sure of not offending you, and to see you listening to my love with that angel smile which belongs only to you.

“Whatever you may do, your image remains mine; you can remove it only by tearing out my heart.  As long as your look lives in my remembrance, as long as the bouquet keeps a trace of its perfume, as long as a word will tell of love, I will cherish hope.”

Having sealed his letter, Croisilles went out and walked up and down the street opposite the Godeau mansion, waiting for a servant to come out.  Chance, which always serves mysterious loves, when it can do so without compromising itself, willed it that Mademoiselle Julie’s maid should have arranged to purchase a cap on that day.  She was going to the milliner’s when Croisilles accosted her, slipped a louis into her hand, and asked her to take charge of his letter.

The bargain was soon struck; the servant took the money to pay for her cap and promised to do the errand out of gratitude.  Croisilles, full of joy, went home and sat at his door awaiting an answer.

Before speaking of this answer, a word must be said about Mademoiselle Godeau.  She was not quite free from the vanity of her father, but her good nature was ever uppermost.  She was, in the full meaning of the term, a spoilt child.  She habitually spoke very little, and never was she seen with a needle in her hand; she spent her days at her toilet, and her evenings on the sofa, not seeming to hear the conversation going on around her.  As regards her dress, she was prodigiously coquettish, and her own face was surely what she thought most of on earth.  A wrinkle in her collarette, an ink-spot on her finger, would have distressed her; and, when her dress pleased her, nothing can describe the last look which she cast at her mirror before leaving the room.  She showed neither taste nor aversion for the pleasures in which young ladies usually delight.  She went to balls willingly enough, and renounced going to them without a show of temper, sometimes without motive.