It is a very big bundle, but not very heavy. I take it into my library, and there untie the ribbons and unfasten the paper wrappings; and I see--what? a log! a first-class log! a real Christmas log, but so light that I know it must be hollow. Then I find that it is indeed composed of two separate pieces, opening on hinges, and fastened with hooks. I slip the hooks back, and find myself inundated with violets! Violets! they pour over my table, over my knees, over the carpet. They tumble into my vest, into my sleeves. I am all perfumed with them. “Therese! Therese! fill me some vases with water, and bring them here, quick! Here are violets sent to us I know not from what country nor by what hand; but it must be from a perfumed country, and by a very gracious hand.... Do you hear me, old crow?” I have put all the violets on my table--now completely covered by the odorous mass. But there is still something in the log...a book--a manuscript. It is...I cannot believe it, and yet I cannot doubt it.... It is the “Legende Doree”!--It is the manuscript of the Clerk Alexander! Here is the “Purification of the Virgin” and the “Coronation of Proserpine”;--here is the legend of Saint Droctoveus. I contemplate this violet-perfumed relic. I turn the leaves of it--between which the dark rich blossoms have slipped in here and there; and, right opposite the legend of Saint-Cecilia, I find a card bearing this name: “Princess Trepof.” Princess Trepof!--you who laughed and wept by turns so sweetly under the fair sky of Agrigentum!--you, whom a cross old man believed to be only a foolish little woman!--to-day I am convinced of your rare and beautiful folly; and the old fellow whom you now overwhelm with happiness will go to kiss your hand, and give you back, in another form, this precious manuscript, of which both he and science owe you an exact and sumptuous publication! Therese entered my study just at that moment; she seemed to be very much excited. “Monsieur!” she cried, “guess whom I saw just now in a carriage, with a coat-of-arms painted on it, that was stopping before the door?” “Parbleu!--Madame Trepof,” I exclaimed. “I don’t know anything about any Madame Trepof,” answered my housekeeper. “The woman I saw just now was dressed like a duchess, and had a little boy with her, with lace-frills all along the seams of his clothes. And it was that same little Madame Coccoz you once sent a log to, when she was lying-in here about eleven years ago. I recognized her at once.” “What!” I exclaimed, “you mean to say it was Madame Coccoz, the widow of the almanac-peddler?”