The other young girls of the middle class grouped themselves round the Deviolaine family. The two Troisvallet girls, Henriette and Clementine: Clementine, dark with beautiful black hair, strangely attractive eyes, a Roman complexion, of the type of Velletri or Subiaco, and a head like one of Augustine Carrachi's. Henriette was tall, fair, rosy, slender, gracious, and as pliant in her gentle youthfulness as a rose, as a blade of corn, as a willow tree: she had that type of face which is half sad, half merry; the transition between angel and woman, showing all the common needs of earth, yet full of heavenly aspirations too. Then the two charming girls Sophie and Pélagie Perrot; Louise Moreau, a sweet young girl, who has since become the admirable mother of a family; Éléonore Picot, of whom I have spoken--an excellent woman, saddened by the death of her brother Stanislas, and the shameful charge that had weighed for a short time upon her brother Auguste. Then there were others, too, whose names I have forgotten, but whose fresh faces still appear in my mind's eye like the phantoms of a dream or like the apparitions which glide out of German streams or are reflected in the lochs of Scotland as they pursue their nocturnal rounds. Lastly, after the middle classes, came, as I have said, the group of young girls which I cannot class in the social hierarchy, but which held the same place in that small world of ours shut in by the green girdle of its beautiful forest, that lilies of the valley, Easter daisies, cornflowers, hyacinths and pompon roses hold among flowers. Oh! but it was a pretty sight to see them on Sunday, in their summer dresses, with pink and blue sashes, their tiny bonnets trimmed by their own hands and put on in a hundred varieties of coquettish ways--for in those days not one of them dare wear a hat; it was a delight to see them free of all constraint, ignorant of any etiquette, playing, racing, lacing and interlacing their charming round bare arms in long chains. What exquisite creatures they were! What delightful young things! It is of little interest to my readers, I am well aware, to know their names; but I knew them, I loved them, I spent my earliest years among them, those gentle opening days in the morning of life; I wish to tell their names, I wish to paint their portraits, I wish to describe their different charms, and then I hope they will pardon my indiscretions for my very indiscretions' sake.