can you tell me if Madame de Meilhan is near here?” At these words I saw a young and beautiful creature, tall, slender, erect, lift herself like a lily from among the reeds, and trembling and pale, examine me with the air of a startled gazelle.  I stood mute and motionless, gazing at her.  Surely she possessed the royal beauty of the lily.  An imagination enamored of the melodies of the antique muse would have immediately taken her for the nymph of that brook.  Like two blue-bells in a field of ripe grain, her large blue eyes were as limpid as the stream which reflected the azure of the sky.  On her brow sat the pride of the huntress Diana.  Her attitude and the expression of her face betrayed a royalty which desired to conceal its greatness, a strange mixture of timorous boldness and superb timidity—­and over it all, the brilliancy of youth—­a nameless charm of innocence and childishness tempered in a charming manner the dignity of her noble presence.

I turned away, charmed and agitated, not having spoken a word.  After wandering about sometime longer I finally discovered the little army corps, marching towards the chateau, the general always ahead.  As I had anticipated, the battle was about over, a few shots fired at the fugitives were alone heard.  Edgar saw me in the distance, and looked furious.  “Ah traitor!” said he, “you have lagged behind!  I am riddled with balls; I have six bullets in my breast,” “Monsieur,” cried the general, “at what juncture did you leave the combat?” “You see,” said Edgar to me, “that the torture is about to commence again.”  “General,” observed Madame de Meilhan, “I think that the munitions are exhausted and dinner is ready.”  “Very well,” gravely replied the hero, “we will take Lubeck at dessert.”  “Alas! we are taken;” said Edgar, heaving a sigh that would have lifted off a piece of the Cordilleras.

M. de Meilhan left the group of promenaders and joined me; we walked side by side.  You can imagine, madame, how anxious I was to question Edgar; you can also comprehend the feeling of delicacy which restrained me.  My poet worships beauty; but it is a pagan worship of color and form.  The result is, a certain boldness of detail not always excusable by grace of expression, in his description of a beautiful woman; too lively an enthusiasm for the flesh; too great a satisfaction in drawing lines and contours not to shock the refined.  A woman poses before him like a statue or rather like a Georgian in a slave-market, and from the manner in which he analyzes and dissects her, you would say that he wanted either to sell or buy her.  I allude now to his speech only, which is lively, animated but rather French its picturesque crudity.  As a poet he sculptures like Phidias, and his verse has all the dazzling purity of marble.