"No, Monsieur de Morseiul, no, it is neither for health's sake nor for beauty's that I rise early and seek the morning air. I will tell you why it is. In those early and solitary hours, and those hours alone, I can have some communion with my own heart--I can converse with the being within myself--I can hold conference, too, with what I never meet alone at other hours,--nature, and nature's God. The soft air of the morning has a voice only to be heard when crowds are far away. The leaves of the green trees have tongues, drowned in the idle gabble of a foolish multitude, but heard in the calm quiet of the early morning. The fields, the brooks, the birds, the insects, all have their language, if we will listen to it; but what are fields, and brooks, and birds, and trees, and the soft air, when I am surrounded by a tribe of things as empty as the sounding brass or tinkling cymbal? Can I think of any thing more dignified than a padusoie when one baby man is whispering softly in my ear, 'The violet, Mademoiselle, suits better with your complexion than with any other that the earth ever produced, which shows that complexion's exceeding brightness;' and another tells me that the blackness of my hair would make a raven blush, or that my eyes are fit to people the heaven with stars! But it is time that I should go to my task," she continued; "so adieu, Monsieur de Morseiul. If you walk on straight to the ramparts you will find the view beautiful, and the air fresh." Thus saying, she turned and left him, and the hint not to follow was too plain to be misunderstood. He walked on then towards the ramparts with his arms crossed upon his chest, and his eyes bent upon the ground. He did not soliloquise, for his nature was not one of those which frequently give way to such weaknesses. It was his thoughts that spoke, and spoke plainly, though silently.