Having accepted an invitation to dinner at the X. C. V.’s, I did not give myself much time for sleep, and I went out on foot with a cloak on.  The snow was falling in large flakes, and when I got to madame’s I was as white as a sheet from head to foot.  She gave me a hearty welcome, laughing, and saying that her daughter had been telling her how she had puzzled me, and that she was delighted to see me come to dinner without ceremony.  “But,” added she, “it’s Friday today, and you will have to fast, though, after all, the fish is very good.  Dinner is not ready yet.  You had better go and see my daughter, who is still a-bed.”

As may be imagined, this invitation had not to be repeated, for a pretty woman looks better in bed than anywhere else.  I found Mdlle.  X. C. V. sitting up in bed writing, but she stopped as soon as she saw me.

“How is this, sweet lie-a-bed, not up yet?”

“Yes, I am staying in bed partly because I feel lazy, and partly because I am freer here.”

“I was afraid you were not quite well.”

“Nor am I. However, we will say no more about that now.  I am just going to take some soup, as those who foolishly establish the institution of fasting were not polite enough to ask my opinion on the subject.  It does not agree with my health, and I don’t like it, so I am not going to get up even to sit at table, though I shall thus deprive myself of your society.”

I naturally told her that in her absence dinner would have no savour; and I spoke the truth.

As the presence of her sister did not disturb us, she took out of her pocket-book an epistle in verse which I had addressed to her when her mother had forbidden me the house.  “This fatal letter,” said she, “which you called ‘The Phoenix,’ has shaped my life and may prove the cause of my death.”

I had called it the Phoenix because, after bewailing my unhappy lot, I proceeded to predict how she would afterwards give her heart to a mortal whose qualities would make him deserve the name of Phoenix.  A hundred lines were taken up in the description of these imaginary mental and moral characteristics, and certainly the being who should have them all would be right worthy of worship, for he would be rather a god than a man.

“Alas!” said Mdlle.  X. C. V., “I fell in love with this imaginary being, and feeling certain that such an one must exist I set myself to look for him.  After six months I thought I had found him.  I gave him my heart, I received his, we loved each other fondly.  But for the last four months we have been separated, and during the whole time I have only had one letter from him.  Yet I must not blame him, for I know he cannot help it.  Such, is my sorry fate:  I can neither hear from him nor write to him:”