"The scene is laid in the country, messieurs, in a delightful region about five leagues from Paris. I had gone there to pass a fortnight with a friend of mine who has a house in that neighborhood; he had consumption, and was living on milk exclusively; so I leave you to guess whether the establishment was a lively one. However, one should be willing sometimes to make sacrifices to friendship. And then, too, there was a house near by, occupied by several tenants, among them a charming young widow whom I had met in society in Paris. She was a blonde, with tender blue eyes and a languishing smile, and an expert coquette, I assure you! You will say that all women are; but there are gradations. I renewed my acquaintance with her; in the country, as you have lots of time to yourself, love does its work much more quickly than in town; and then, the delicious shade, the verdure, the charming retired nooks where you can hear nothing but the twittering of birds--are not all these made to incline one's heart to sentiment, to invite to love? A welcome invitation, which it is so pleasant to hear! In a word, I made such progress with my lovely widow, that nothing remained but to obtain a tête-à-tête. That, however, was not so easy as you may think. The house where my blonde lived was occupied by a lot of inquisitive, gossiping, evil-tongued people, whose greatest delight was to busy themselves about what others were doing. That is the principal occupation of fools in the country; they get up in the morning to spy on their neighbors, and do not go to bed happy if they have not done or said some spiteful thing during the day. My attentions to the pretty widow had been remarked; so they instantly passed the word around to watch us, to dog our steps; she and I could not move, without the whole province knowing it. All those bourgeois and clowns of the pumpkin family were worthy to be police-men in Paris; and I thought seriously of recommending them to monsieur le préfet. "The result was that we had to act with great secrecy. The house where my widow lived had a large garden. All gardens have a small gate; and each tenant was supplied with a key to the little gate of the garden in question, which opened into a lovely meadow. Several times, when talking with my inamorata in the evening, I had urged her to give me her key, so that I could get into the garden. By waiting until midnight, I was certain to avoid meeting any of her fellow boarders, for all of them went to bed at ten o'clock, as a rule. My constant refrain was: 'Let me have the key; or else let me in at midnight.' "At last, one evening when we had met at a neighbor's, as we left the house my blonde came to me, took my hand, and whispered in my ear: "'Come to-night.'