Such was the severity of this first blow that I pleaded an engagement, presented my offerings (how dreadfully inappropriate they seemed!), and hurried away to a lecture on _materia medica_ at the _École Pratique_; that being a good, congenial, dismal entertainment for the evening! Sunday came with the sunrise, and at midday, true as the clock of St. Eustache, I knocked once more at the door of the _mansarde_ where my Josephine dwelt. This time, my visit being anticipated, I found her dressed to receive me. She looked more fresh and charming than ever; and the lilac muslin which I had seen in the washing-tub some eighteen or twenty hours before, became her to perfection. So did her pretty green shawl, pinned closely at the throat and worn as only a French-woman would have known how to wear it. So did the white camellia and the moss-rose buds which she had taken out of my bouquet, and fastened at her waist. What I was not prepared for, however, was her cap. I had forgotten that your Parisian grisette[1] would no more dream of wearing a bonnet than of crowning her head with feathers and adorning her countenance with war-paint. It had totally escaped me that I, a bashful Englishman of twenty-one, nervously sensitive to ridicule and gifted by nature with but little of the spirit of social defiance, must in broad daylight make my appearance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a bonnetless grisette! What should I do, if I met Dr. Chéron? or Madame de Courcelles? or, worse than all, Madame de Marignan? My obvious resource was to take her in whatever direction we should be least likely to meet any of my acquaintances. Where, oh fate! might that obscurity be found which had suddenly become the dearest object of my desires? [1] The grisette of twenty years ago, _bien entendu_. I am writing, be it remembered, of "The days of my youth." "_Eh bien_, Monsieur Basil," said Josephine, when my first compliments had been paid. "I am quite ready. Where are we going?" "We shall dine, _mon cher ange_," said I, absently, "at--let me see--at...." "At the Moulin Rouge," interrupted she. "But that is six hours to come. In the meantime--" "In the meantime? Ay, in the meantime...what a delightful day for the time of year!" "Shall it be Versailles?" suggested Josephine. "Heaven forbid!" Josephine opened her large eyes. "_Mon Dieu!_" said she. "What is there so very dreadful in Versailles?" I made no reply. I was passing all the suburbs in review before my mind's eye,--Bellevue, Enghien, Fontenay-aux-Roses, St. Germains, Sceaux; even Fontainebleau and Compiègne. The grisette pouted, and glanced at the clock. "If Monsieur is as slow to start as he is to answer," said she, "we shall not get beyond the barriers to-day." At this moment, I remembered to have heard of Montlhéry as a place where there was a forest and a feudal ruin; also, which was more to the purpose, as lying at least six-and-twenty miles south of Paris.