should inhale, he constantly observed a four-and-twenty hours’ fast, broken only by a crust of bread and a glass of water. There were days, it cannot be denied, when the fair Blanche de Vouvray admitted to herself that it might have been better for her never to have seen M. de Candolles. His strange adoration captivated and preoccupied her by its very strangeness, probably far more than if it had followed the ordinary method in such cases. One day, after saving during three weeks, and Heaven only knows with what pains, the sum of fifteen francs, Ferdinand therewith secured the loan of a really handsome horse, from one of the dealers in the Champs Elysées. When the carriage came in view—than which there was no other in the world for him—he made his steed execute certain evolutions gracefully enough, for he was a remarkably good horseman, darted off upon the road to the _Bois de Boulogne_, crossed once or twice the path of the _calèche_ he was pursuing, received _one_ look of recognition, _one_ sign from a small gloved hand, and was over-paid! That evening, they met in the same _salon_: a lady—who was standing by the piano whereon Blanche had just been playing a new waltz—asked Ferdinand whether she had not seen him on horseback in the Champs Elysées. “I thought I would try how it might suit me now,” was his reply: “but I find it will not do; the exercise is too strong, and I am unequal to it.” Blanche de Vouvray grew pale, and bent down to look over some music. “If riding is too much for his nerves,” observed—later in the evening, to his neighbor—one of the beardless _lions_ who happened to be present, “I should imagine such a monstrous quantity of cake must be equally so!” and jumping forward to Ferdinand’s side— “_Halte là, mon vieux!_” he exclaimed, with all the elegance and atticism of _Mabille_ in his intonation. “Leave a little of that _Savarin_ for me, will you? _Que diable!_ why, one would swear you hadn’t eaten since yesterday!” Ferdinand turned round suddenly upon the ill-bred youth, and in his haggard glance there was a flash of positive ferocity: it was but a flash, but to an observer it would have sufficed to testify the truth of the horrid words uttered in jest. An instant after, the impression was chased away, and a laugh was the only visible result of the incident; but any one who could have decyphered what was engraven on M. de Candolles’ countenance that night, would have seen that a convulsion so violent had passed over his whole being; that reason was almost shaken from its throne.