Simon-le-Gaucher could offer more reliable future prospects, and his flame promised to be more enduring, but Dame Perrine was a very superstitious person. She had seen Simon cross himself with his left hand, and she reflected that it would be necessary for him to sign the marriage contract with his left hand. Dame Perrine was convinced that the sign of the cross executed with the left hand was calculated to destroy rather than to save a soul, and in like manner no one could have persuaded her that a marriage contract signed with the left hand could have any other result than an unhappy menage. She therefore, but without disclosing the reasons for her repugnance, received Simon-le-Gaucher's first advances in a way to make him renounce all hope. Hermann remained. Ah, Hermann! that was a different matter. Hermann Was no coxcomb, like little Jehan, nor a man with the seal of Nature's displeasure upon him, like left-handed Simon; in Hermann's personality there was something honest and outspoken which appealed to Dame Perrine's heart. Moreover, Hermann, instead of having a left hand for the right and vice versa, made use of either or both so energetically that he seemed to have two right hands. He was a magnificent man too, according to all vulgar ideas. Dame Perrine therefore had fixed her choice upon Hermann. But, as we know, Hermann was as innocent as Celadon. The result was that Dame Perrine's first broadsides, the pouting and sighs and sidelong glances, were utterly powerless against the naïve timidity of the honest German. He contented himself with staring at Dame Perrine out of his great round eyes; but, like the blind men of the Gospel, "eyes had he, but he saw not," or if he did see, he saw the buxom governess as a whole simply, without noting details. Dame Perrine repeatedly proposed that they should go for a walk on the Quai des Augustins, or in the gardens of the Grand--or Petit-Nesle, and on every occasion she selected Hermann for her cavalier. This made Hermann very happy internally. His great Teutonic heart beat five or six extra pulsations a minute when Dame Perrine was hanging upon his arm; but either because he found some difficulty in pronouncing the French language, or because it gave him greater pleasure to hear the object of his secret thoughts talk, Dame Perrine could rarely extract anything more from him than these two sacramental phrases, "Ponchour, matemoizelle," and "Atieu, matemoizelle," which Hermann generally pronounced at an interval of two hours; the first when Dame Perrine took his arm, the second when she let it go. Now, although this title of Mademoiselle was immensely flattering to Dame Perrine, and although there was something very agreeable in talking two hours without fear of interruption, she would have been glad to have her monologue broken in upon by an occasional interjection which might give her some idea of the progress she was making in the heart of her mute attendant.