I stood in my balcony and devoured every carriage with my eyes. At six o’clock I had seen all the carriages in Paris roll by—and I was still alone! Alone! when one has been promised a _rendezvous_! There is in this deception the very delirium of despair! As soon as it was proper I ran to visit Mademoiselle de St. Phar. The porter, hardly concealing a smile, said, “Mademoiselle de Saint Phar has gone to the country.” “When will she return?” asked I, with deathlike visage. “After Easter or Christmas,” answered the porter. As I came away I heard loud laughter in chorus from the whole family of porters. No news of Mademoiselle de Saint Phar! Every night at the opera—but no _danseuse_. Her name no longer appeared in the bills—it had disappeared from the ballet as her person had from her hotel. Could I abase my dignity as representative of the Celestial Empire by causing search to be made for a _danseuse_? What would the grand secretary for foreign affairs have said of me! I could only suffer in silence. So I did suffer—and hold my tongue. Forty days after that fatal Sunday I was walking along a great street, whose name I forget, and having a habit of reading signs as I pass along, what was my astonishment to read the following: “CITY OF PEKIN!” Chinese Curiosities at fix’d prices. In taking a glance at the window, I recognized some of those I had formerly owned. So I stepped into the shop, resolved to repurchase them if the price were not too high. An involuntary exclamation escaped me! the shopkeeper was a young woman—in short, Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar! I was thunderstruck, and as immovable as one of my clay compatriots at my side: but the _danseuse_ smiled charmingly, and without interrupting her embroidery work, she said with a _sang froid_ sublime, “Ah! good morning, dear doctor—you are very good to favor us so early with a visit—look around and see if you cannot find something here to your taste. Your god-daughter has the small-pox—she asks for her god-father every day—the dear little Dileri!” I crossed my arms upon my breast and shook my head—a pantomime which I have remarked in a drama at the Theatre Ambigu means “what infamy!” Mademoiselle cast a sidelong glance at me—shrugged her shoulders, and biting off a scarlet thread with her teeth, said— “By the bye, dear doctor, I am married now—I have been a wife fifteen days—Madame Telamon, at your service. I will introduce you to my husband—a very handsome man—you would scarcely reach to his waist even if you raised yourself upon your toes. Hold! here he is!”