“The Duke of Dalrymple and the Marquis of Arbuthnot—­Messieurs Jules Charpentier and Gustave Dubois,” said Mueller, with the most degage air in the world.

Monsieur Jules, a tall young man with an enormous false nose of the regular carnival pattern, and Monsieur Gustave, who was short and stout, with a visible high-water mark round his throat and wrists, and curious leather mosaics in his boots, received us very cordially, and did not appear to be in the least surprised at the magnificence of the introduction.  On the contrary, they shook hands with us; apologized for the absence of Adrien, who was preparing the supper upstairs; and offered to find us partners for the next valse.  Dalrymple immediately proposed for the hand of Mademoiselle Annette.  Mueller, declining adventitious aid, wandered among the ladies, making himself universally agreeable and trusting for a partner to his own unassisted efforts.  For myself, I was indebted to Monsieur Gustave for an introduction to a very charming young lady whose name was Josephine, and with whom I fell over head and ears in love without a moment’s warning.

She was somewhat under the middle height, slender, supple, rosy-lipped, and coquettish to distraction.  Her pretty mouth dimpled round with smiles at every word it uttered.  Her very eyes laughed.  Her hair, which was more adorned than concealed by a tiny muslin cap that clung by some unseen agency to the back of her head, was of a soft, warm, wavy brown, with a woof of gold threading it here and there.  Her voice was perhaps a little loud; her conversation rather childish; her accent such as would scarcely have passed current in the Faubourg St. Germain—­but what of that?  One would be worse than foolish to expect style and cultivation in a grisette; and had I not had enough to disgust me with both in Madame de Marignan?  What more charming, after all, than youth, beauty, and lightheartedness?  Were Noel and Chapsal of any importance to a mouth that could not speak without such a smile as Hebe might have envied?

I was, at all events, in no mood to take exception to these little defects.  I am not sure that I did not even regard them in the light of additional attractions.  That which in another I should have called bete, I set down to the score of naivete in Mademoiselle Josephine.  One is not diffident at twenty—­by the way, I was now twenty-one—­especially after dining at the Maison Doree.

Mademoiselle Josephine was frankness itself.  Before I had enjoyed the pleasure of her acquaintance for ten minutes, she told me she was an artificial florist; that her patronne lived in the Rue Menilmontant; that she went to her work every morning at nine, and left it every evening at eight; that she lodged sous les toits at No. 70, Rue Aubry-le-Boucher; that her relations lived at Juvisy; and that she went to see them now and then on Sundays, when the weather and her funds permitted.