I felt a kind of uneasiness analogous to that experienced when there is thunder in the air. I tried to apply myself to something, but, finding this impossible, I ended by returning to the window, where, book in hand, I rose from time to time to see what was going on in the street or the garden of the Tuileries. At length, about two o’clock, I saw a small _coupé_ coming around the corner from the Rue St. Florentin. I had seen an endless number pass while I stood there, but I watched this one without a shadow of doubt as to the direction it would take. It was but a moment, indeed, before I saw it stop at the door of the hotel. We were not, to be sure, the only occupants, but it never occurred to me that the person in the carriage would ask for any one but myself. I returned to the drawing‐room, therefore, and had taken the seat I usually occupied when I received callers, when the Marquise de Villanera was announced in a loud voice. I rose to meet her. There was a moment’s silence, doubtless caused by an equal degree of curiosity on both sides. It was only for an instant that passed like a flash, but nevertheless each of us had scanned the other from head to foot. At the first glance she did not seem young. I was not twenty years old myself then, and I judged as one is apt to at that age. In reality, she was not thirty. She was tall and fine‐looking. Her form was noble and graceful, her features delicate and regular, her hair and eyebrows black as jet, her complexion absolutely devoid of color, and her eyes of a lively blue. This somewhat too bright a color gave a cold, hard look to her eyes, but their expression changed as soon as she began to speak, and became sweet, caressing, beseeching, irresistible. She was dressed in black, apparently with extreme simplicity, but in reality with extreme care. I had not time to wonder how I should break this silence. It was she who spoke first, and her very first words removed the timidity and embarrassment that rendered this interview still more painful. What she said I am really unable to remember, and I cannot comprehend now the effect of her words; but I know they wrought a complete transformation in the feelings I experienced the evening before at the very mention of her name!