And if I said to her: "Irinel, do you think it will rain to-day?" or "Irinel, there are only two weeks before the long vacation begins, shall you be pleased, as you used to be, when we go to Slanic?" Irinel remained silent, looking straight in front of her, and I am sure that at that moment she saw nothing--trees, houses, and sky disappeared as though in a thick mist. This silence surprised and disquieted me, and I said to her in a low voice, almost as though I were guilty of something wrong: "Irinel, you are scarcely back from school and you are bored already?" An exaggerated gaiety was her immediate reply; she laughed, and talked, and told little anecdotes which she began and left unfinished, especially about life at school. "You don't know," she said to me in a quick, loud voice, "what a letter one of my friends showed me. Only I read it, and another girl and her sister, and it seems to me she showed it to some others. I nearly died of laughter." And Irinel began to laugh, and laughed and laughed until the tears ran down her rosy cheeks. Then sighing and laughing she began: "He wrote to her, trembling, of stars, two only, which burnt and spoke to him. How can the stars he talks about burn? Are they bits of coal? How can stars speak? I don't understand. After that came ice, thawing, marble, a bed of fire, a monastery, suicide--Ah! pauvre Marie! Indeed, I was sorry for her, poor girl! Many a time we put our arms round each other's necks and kissed each other. We kissed each other and began to cry. You must know, Iorgu, that we kept nothing from each other. Every Monday she read me a letter on which could be seen traces of big tears, and I, after I had controlled myself sufficiently not to burst out laughing over those 'two twin stars which burn and speak,' had to prepare to cry, and, believe me, I cried with all my heart. Pauvre chérie!" Irinel was ready to cry after laughing with such enjoyment, but, when she noticed that I kept my eyes cast down and listened in silence as though I were offended, she asked me with malicious irony: "Iorgu, do you think it will rain to-day?" Such scenes took place early in the morning: Sunday was a day of torture for me. All day Irinel said "If you please" to me. She embroidered or played the piano instead of our walking about the yard and garden. All day I felt the terrible anger of a very shy person with "those two stars which speak." For three years I lived this life of daring dreams during the week, of fear and misery on Sunday, of wonderful plans put off from day to day, and concealed with an hypocrisy possessed only by the timid and innocent. During the last year, after a vacation passed at Slanic, I made up my mind.