Monsieur Leclerc’s soul was perturbed within him by these suggestions; he pulled up two young cauliflowers and reset their places with pigweeds; he hoed the nicely sloped border of the bed flat to the path, and then flung the hoe across the walk, and went off to his daily occupation with a new idea in his head.  Nor was it an unpleasant one.  The idea of a transition from his squalid and pinching boarding-house to the delicate comfort of Miss Lucinda’s menage, the prospect of so kind and good a wife to care for his hitherto dreaded future,—­all this was pleasant.  I cannot honestly say he was in love with our friend; I must even confess that whatever element of that nature existed between the two was now all on Miss Lucinda’s side, little as she knew it.  Certain it is, that, when she appeared that day at the dancing-class in a new green calico flowered with purple, and bows on her slippers big enough for a bonnet, it occurred to Monsieur Leclerc, that, if they were married, she would take no more lessons!  However, let us not blame him; he was a man, and a poor one; one must not expect too much from men, or from poverty; if they are tolerably good, let us canonize them even, it is so hard for the poor creatures!  And to do Monsieur Leclerc justice, he had a very thorough respect and admiration for Miss Lucinda.  Years ago, in his stormy youth-time, there had been a pair of soft-fringed eyes that looked into his as none would ever look again,—­and they murdered her, those mad wild beasts of Paris, in the chapel where she knelt at her pure prayers,—­murdered her because she knelt beside an aristocrat, her best friend, the Duchess of Montmorenci, who had taken the pretty peasant from her own estate to bring her up for her maid.  Jean Leclerc had lifted that pale shape from the pavement and buried it himself; what else he buried with it was invisible; but now he recalled the hour with a long, shuddering sigh, and, hiding his face in his hands, said softly, “The violet is dead,—­there is no spring for her.  I will have now an amaranth,—­it is good for the tomb.”

Whether Miss Lucinda’s winter dress suggested this floral metaphor let us not inquire.  Sacred be sentiment,—­when there is even a shadow of reality about it!—­when it becomes a profession, and confounds itself with millinery and shades of mourning, it is—­“bosh,” as the Turkeys say.

So that very evening Monsieur Leclerc arrayed himself in his best, to give another lesson to Miss Lucinda.  But, somehow or other, the lesson was long in beginning; the little parlor looked so home-like and so pleasant, with its bright lamp and gay bunch of roses on the table, that it was irresistible temptation to lounge and linger.  Miss Lucinda had the volume of Florian in her hands, and was wondering why he did not begin, when the book was drawn away, and a hand laid on both of hers.

“Lucinda!” he began, “I give you no lesson to-night.  I have to ask.  Dear Mees, will you to marry your poor slave?”