“M. Larinski sang this little melody with so much pathos that the good abbe was touched, and I became anxious. Anxiety, once felt, is apt to be constantly returning. I asked myself if he had met his palm in the Engadine, and added aloud, rather dryly: ‘Is the day of your departure definitely fixed? will you not do us the favour of granting us a reprieve?’ “He executed the most pearly chromatic scale, and replied: ‘Alas! madame, I am only deferring my departure on account of a letter that cannot be much longer delayed; in less than a week, I shall have the distress of bidding you farewell.’ “‘You shall not leave,’ said Abbe Miollens, ‘without letting us hear once again the poem of the pine. You sang it with so much soul that it seemed to me you must be relating an episode of your own history. My dear count, did you ever chance to dream of a palm?’ “He answered: ‘I have no longer the right to dream; I am no longer free.’ “The abbe started and cried out, in his simple-hearted way, ‘Ah! what, are you married?’ “‘I thought I had told you so,’ replied he with a melancholy smile, and he hastened to speak of a ballet that he had seen the evening before at the opera, and with which he was only half pleased. “You can readily believe that when he pronounced the words, ‘I thought I had told you so,’ I was on the point of falling on his neck; I was so happy, that I was afraid he would read in my eyes my joy, astonishment, and profound gratitude. I think that he is very keen, and that he has conjectured for some time the mistrust with which he inspired me. If he wanted to mock me a little, I will pardon him; a good man unjustly suspected has a perfect right to revenge himself by a little irony. I ordered the horses to be put to my carriage to take him over to the railroad, and the abbe and I accompanied him as far as the station. There cannot be too much regard shown to honest people who have been abused by fortune. “Well! what do you say, my dear friend? Was I wrong in claiming that M. Larinski is a delightful man? He will leave before the end of a week, and he is married, unhappily married, I fear, for his smile was melancholy. You see he may have married out of gratitude some _grisette_, some little working-woman, who nursed him through illness, one of those women who are not presentable; that would be thoroughly in character. Happily, in law there are no good or bad marriages; this one I hold to be unimpeachable. “The reaction was violent: I am so rejoiced that I feel tempted to illuminate Cormeilles and Maisons Lafitte. In what way will your undeceive our dreamer? In your place I would use some precautions. Be prudent; go bridle in hand; and in the future, believe me, climb no more among the rocks; you see what it may lead to.