it was against all precedent to transplant a grape in September, it lived and flourished.  Miss Lucinda’s gratitude to Monsieur Leclerc was altogether disproportioned, as he thought, to his slight service.  He could not understand fully her devotion to her pets, but he respected it, and aided it whenever he could, though he never surmised the motive that adorned Miss Lucinda’s table with such delicate superabundance after the late departure, and laid bundles of lavender-flowers in his tiny portmanteau till the very leather seemed to gather fragrance.

Before long, Monsieur Leclerc was well enough to resume his classes, and return to his boarding-house; but the latter was filled, and only offered a prospect of vacancy in some three weeks after his application; so he returned home somewhat dejected, and as he sat by the little parlor-fire after tea, he said to his hostess, in a reluctant tone,—­

“Mees Lucinda, you have been of the kindest to the poor alien.  I have it in my mind to relieve you of this care very rapidly, but it is not in the Fates that I do.  I have gone to my house of lodgings, and they cannot to give me a chamber as yet I have fear that I must yet rely me on your goodness for some time more, if you can to entertain me so much more of time?”

“Why, I shall like to, Sir,” replied the kindly, simple-hearted old maid.  “I’m sure you are not a mite of trouble, and I never can forget what you did for my pig.”

A smile flitted across the Frenchman’s thin, dark face, and he watched her glittering needles a few minutes in silence before he spoke again.

“But I have other things to say of the most unpleasant to me, Mees Lucinda.  I have a great debt for the goodness and care you to me have lavished.  To the angels of the good God we must submit to be debtors, but there are also of mortal obligations.  I have lodged in your mansion for more of ten weeks, and to you I pay yet no silver, but it is that I have it not at present—­I must ask of your goodness to wait.”

The old maid’s shining black eyes grew soft as she looked at him.

“Why!” said she, “I don’t think you owe me much of anything, Mr. Leclerc.  I never knew things last as they have since you came.  I really think you brought a blessing.  I wish you would please to think you don’t owe me anything.”

The Frenchman’s great brown eyes shone with suspicious dew.

“I cannot to forget that I owe to you far more than any silver of man repays; but I should not think to forget that I also owe to you silver, or I should not be worthy of a man’s name.  No, Mees!  I have two hands and legs.  I will not let a woman most solitary spend for me her good self.”

“Well,” said Miss Lucinda, “if you will be uneasy till you pay me, I would rather have another kind of pay than money.  I should like to know how to dance.  I never did learn, when I was a girl, and I think it would be good exercise.”