and a bunch of ribands, not very skilfully tied.  Daphne was just going to improve the knot, when she saw a billet hid in the flowers.  What should she do?—­read it?  That were dangerous; her confessor did not allow such venialities—­her mamma would be enraged—­some people are so fond of monopolies—­and besides, she might be discovered.  ’Twould be better, then, not to read it—­a much simpler proceeding; for couldn’t she nearly guess what was in it?  And what did she care what was in it?  Not to read it was evidently the safer mode; and accordingly she—­read it through and through, and blushed and smiled, and read it through and through again.  It was none of your commonplace prosaic epistles—­’twas all poetry, all fire; her mamma would have been enchanted if the verses had only been addressed to her.  Here they are:—­

  “My sweetest hour, my happiest day,
  Was in the happy month of May! 
  The happy dreams that round me lay
  On that delicious morn of May!”

  “I saw thee! loved thee!  If my love
  A tribute unrejected be,
  The happiest day of May shall prove
  The happiest of my life to me!”

It is quite evident that if such an open declaration had been made in plain prose, Daphne would have been angry; but in verse, ’twas nothing but a poetical license.  Instead, therefore, of tearing it in pieces, and throwing it into the water, she folded it carefully up, and placed it in the pretty corset of white satin, which seems the natural escritoire of a shepherdess in her teens.  Scarcely had she closed the drawer, and double locked it, when she saw at her side—­Hector and Madame Deshoulieres.

“My poor child,” said the poetess, “how thoughtful you seem on Lignon’s flowery side—­forgetful of your sheep—­”

  ‘That o’er the meadows negligently stray!’

Monsieur de Langevy, as you have given her a crook, methinks you ought to aid her in her duties in watching the flock.  As for myself, I must be off to finish a letter to my bishop.

  ’From Lignon’s famous banks
   What can I find to say? 
   The breezes freshly springing,
   Make me—­and nature—­gay. 
   When Celadon would weep;
   His lost Astrea fair,
   To Lignon he would creep,
   But oh! this joyous air
   Would force to skip and leap
   A dragon in despair!’—­&c. &c.

Madame Deshoulieres had no prudish notions, you will perceive, about a flirtation—­provided it was carried on with the airs and graces of the Hotel Rambouillet.  She merely, therefore, interposed a word here and there, to show that she was present.  Daphne, who scarcely said a word to Hector, took good care to answer every time her mamma spoke to her.  To be sure, it detracts a little from this filial merit, that she did not know what she said.  But if all parties were pleased, I don’t see what possible right anybody else has to find fault.