An attachment between two young persons, if of a nature to arrive at maturity, seems to gain growth and vigour in an inverse proportion to the amount of care bestowed on its cultivation. The plant is by no means an exotic, scarce even a garden-flower. Nay, I think a chance seedling of this tribe comes to fuller perfection than either graft or cutting. It is good for it also to be crushed, mangled, mown over, or trodden down. Storms and snows and bitter frosts bring it rapidly into flower, and it is astonishing, though a tropical blaze could not satisfy its wants, how little sunshine is required to keep it alive. Captain George’s meetings with Cerise were indeed as numerous as five or six in the week; but they took place at an interval of twenty feet, and consisted of low bows and eager glances from a gentleman on a gravel walk, returned by the formal reverence and deep blush of a young lady in a window-seat. On the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, I presume crumbs are acceptable when crusts are not to be obtained. So the Musketeer had felt ill at ease all day, and was now in the most unsuitable frame of mind possible for a masquerade, because the girl had been absent from her window when he passed, which was indeed his own fault, since, in his impatience, he had crossed the gardens of the Hôtel Montmirail a quarter of an hour before his usual time, and had thus perhaps inflicted as much disappointment as he sustained. Now people in the irritable frame of mind caused by a little anxiety, a little disappointment, and a good deal of uncertainty, seldom betake themselves to solitude, which is indeed rather the resort of real happiness or the refuge of utter despair. The simply discontented are more prone to rush into a crowd, and Captain George had no idea of abstaining from the Great Masked Ball at the Opera House, but rather made his appearance somewhat earlier than his wont at this festivity, though when there, he roamed about in a desultory and dissatisfied manner, first dreading, then faintly hoping, and lastly ardently desiring to meet Mademoiselle de Montmirail amongst that brilliant, shifting, bantering, and mysterious throng. Disguised indeed! He would know her, he felt sure, by her pretty feet alone, if she were masked down to her very ankles. He was not so well versed in feminine arts but that he had yet to learn how a lady who really wished to remain unknown at these gatherings would alter her voice, her gestures, her figure, her gait—nay, the very shape of her hands and feet, to deceive those on whom she wished to practise. The majority, on the contrary, were most unwilling thus to sink their identity, and only wore masks, I imagine, to hide the absence of blushes at such direct compliments as were sure to be addressed to them, also as an excuse for considerable freedom of speech in return.