"Gabriel was paralyzed; but I, afraid of nothing, and having no comprehension of the importance of my projected action, continued: "'Mon Dieu! Monsieur Gabriel, you seem dumfounded. However, it's a very simple matter. You carry me off--that is to say, I run away--to-night, after dinner. No one suspects anything, and it will be easy enough for me to do it. You must be waiting for me at the corner, wrapped in a cloak--do you hear? You must have a cloak,--no one ever abducts a girl without that,--and a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over your eyes. I will wear a long pelisse and a veil. It will be great fun! You must take me--wherever you choose. Then you can write to my father that I am with you, and he can't help consenting to our marriage; that's the way it always ends.' "'In that case, mademoiselle, I will run away with you; I should like to.' "'To-night?' "'To-night.' "'I will leave the house at eight o'clock; be on the lookout for me.' "'I will.' "'And you will wear a cloak?' "'I have one, mademoiselle; but I haven't a broad-brimmed hat.' "'Buy one.' "'To be sure; I didn't think of that.' "'And think about where you will take me.' "'I'll think about it.' "'Now go; until to-night!' "I can't tell you, my dear Charles, all the thoughts that assailed me as soon as I had persuaded my lover to abduct me. I was glad, and sorry; I looked forward with delight to being abducted, for I had read many novels, and, unluckily, of the sort in which one never finds a truthful line; in which nature, constantly perverted and distorted, like the language of the characters, is made to produce only such individuals as never existed, with an accompaniment of stilted, bombastic phrases; and whose moral is that vice or crime is always triumphant over virtue and honesty. Is it not true, my friend, that those are villainous books, and that if by chance they contain charm of style and poetic thoughts the author is all the more culpable, since he employs his talent solely to disgust us with what is good and beautiful, with what has always been held in respect? "As I was saying, I was intensely excited, in a sort of delirium, in fact. I had had no mother from childhood! Abandoned at an early age to the care of paid dependents, never having found a heart into which I could pour out my thoughts and feelings, treated by my father like a little girl, or rather like a boy who was left to himself all day to raise the deuce, I had no one but myself. Ah! if my mother had lived! how many, many things would not have happened to me! She would have made me more prudent and careful; and it is probable that you would not be supping with me to-night.