We ran wild in the woods and fields all that day, we fed the fishes in the ponds, we made ourselves dizzy on the seesaws and merry-go-rounds, and at last, fairly tired out, and feeling desperately and most unromantically hungry, turned into the neatest and least frequented restaurant we could find and ordered our dinner.

Therese was no gourmande, luckily.  Her tastes were simple and harmonized admirably with my slender means.  We dined, however, like princes, and drank a bottle of Chateau Margeaux, instead of the vin ordinaire, which was my ordinary wine.  Therese’s gayety had fairly inoculated me, and, forgetting my usual reserve, we laughed and chatted as noisily as a couple of children.

“Upon my word,” cried I, as I caught sight of a bouquet of flowers in the room we occupied, “what a couple of ninnies we have been!  We have forgotten to get any flowers to carry home with us.  But I suppose you see too many of them through the week to care for them to-day.”

“Oh, no!” replied Therese.  “I could never see too much of flowers; and besides, you must have a bunch to carry home to Mademoiselle this evening.  She will never forgive you, if you neglect her to-day.  And what would she think or say, if she knew where you are now and whom you are with?  She is very fond of flowers,—­when they come from you, I mean.”

“Well,” I stammered, and my face burned like fire.  “What Mademoiselle?  And what makes you think that I make presents of the flowers I get of you?  I only get them for myself, and as an excuse for seeing you.”

“Ah! menteur!” cried Therese, shaking her finger at me with mock solemnity. “Fi donc! c’est vilain. Do you think I have no eyes, or that you have none that speak as plainly as your mouth, and more truly?  You try to deceive me, Monsieur!” and the little hypocrite assumed so injured and heart-broken an expression and tone, that I was almost wild with remorse, and cursed the wretch who had placed the flowers in the room, and myself for having noticed them.  I should have been hurried into I don’t know what expressions of attachment to her and of indifference towards every other individual of her sex, if she had not prevented me by the following startling remark.

“I know to whom you give the flowers you value so much as coming from me.  It is to your next-door neighbor, who pleases you more than I do, and whom you have known, perhaps, longer than you have me.  Why didn’t you invite her, and not me, to come with you to-day?  It would have been better.”

“Ah!” cried I, “do you know her?  She told you about it?  Why doesn’t she let me see her?  Is her name Hermine?”

And almost before I knew it, I had told her the whole story of my passion for my invisible neighbor.

Therese pouted, and turned her back.  She put her handkerchief to her face, and called me all sorts of hard names for having brought her there to listen to the confession of my love for another; and turned a deaf ear, or I thought she did, to my expostulations and my protestations that I didn’t really care for Hermine,—­that it was only a passing fancy, more curiosity than anything else,—­and that I really loved no one but her.