When it is three o'clock, and a wandering Arcadian council is very well but somewhat warm, when the narrowing Adour, which has its source at the end of the Valley, flows round a projecting tongue of land, and draws its silver gauze cover over the pale moon reposing on its breast,[19] when round this slip of earth, this flowery anchoring place, half water scene, half bowling green, a broadleaved oak arcade grows, beneath which trembles a sun-gilt shadow, gliding from between the branches of the trees, on to the grass, embroidered by the restless, roving, gay-colored sand, on the book of nature--its insects, when the hammering in the shining marble blocks, the living Alp-horns, the bleating pasture-sheep, and the murmuring of waves fill the heart to its topmost branches and up to the brim with life-balsam, and the head with life-spirit; and when so many beauties are heard and seen,--living beauties who walk are inclined to sit down on the slip of earth, after the cushion-carriers have placed their burdens as resting-places for their arms. My dear Victor! all this came to pass. While sitting, long speeches were not as practicable as while walking. Even before, when we, from some distance, were choosing this spot for a resting-place, they had suffered considerably. I remained on the shore near Nadine, whose cheeks, reflected in the shadow-painted waves, appeared a charming pale red, as though a cochineal had bled to death on them. The walk and her red parasol had been too great colorists. My dear brother, I am preparing to fall in love. The operation on the wart was unimportant as a corner-piece of vexation, as negative electricity; but warts have their good points. Nadine plucked roses and other flowers. I drew an empty jewel-box from my pocket,--it was empty, like the 9th Kurstuhl, the Elias chair,[20] or the _limbus patrum_,--and held it under them, begging her to shake the flowers, that I might catch the millipeds,[21] which, like tallow candles, are more suitable for the eye than the nose. I caught a whole germanic diet of these creatures from the fragrant flower-cups, and imprisoned them in the box. During the flower-toying, which brought us nearer to each other, a small cockchafer fell on my skin. I looked round for the flowers and could find nothing till I saw, protruding from Nadine's left pocket, a souvenir, filled with sweet-smelling herbs. To steal from a beautiful woman is often nothing else than to give to her. I thought it fit, secretly to take the scented pocket-book in order to make a scent-bottle, and a joke of it in future. I so arranged the theft, that the Baron perceived my hand, holding the book, retreating from the pocket. The souvenir, thought I, may occasion some scene; meanwhile I can smell at it. I indemnified her for the loss of the scent-bag by the millipeds, whose prison I immediately insinuated into her pocket. The Baron was witness.