"Very well! but you have not been presented." "Present me, then, yourself." "Yes, yes; but you must first be presented to me." "Wait!" I ran like a crazy man across the ballroom; I jostled several couples who were waltzing; my sword got entangled between my legs, I slipped on the waxed floor, and fell my full length. It was John Harris who helped me up. "For whom are you searching?" "They are here, I have seen them. I shall marry Mary-Ann; but I must be presented first. It is the English custom. Help me! Where are they? Have you not seen a large woman, with a bird of paradise head-dress?" "Yes, she left the ball with a pretty girl." "Left the ball! But, my friend, she is Mary-Ann's mother!" "Be calm! we will find them again. I will have you presented by the American Minister." "That is the very thing! I will show you my uncle, Edward Sharper. I left him here. Where in the devil has he hidden? He ought not to be far away!" Uncle Edward had disappeared. I dragged poor Harris to the Place des Palais, before the Hotel des Etrangers. Mrs. Simons' apartments were lighted. At the end of a few moments the lights were extinguished. Everyone had gone to bed. "Let us do the same," Harris suggested. "Sleep will calm you. To-morrow between one and two, I will arrange your affairs." I passed a night much worse than those of my captivity. Harris slept with me, or rather, he did not sleep. We heard the carriages coming from the ball, descend Rue d'Hèrmes with their freight of uniforms and toilets. About five o'clock, weariness closed my eyes. Three hours afterwards, Dimitri entered my room and said: "Great news! Your Englishwomen have gone!" "Where?" "To Trieste." "Wretch! art thou sure of it?" "It was I who accompanied them to the ship." "My poor friend," Harris exclaimed, seizing my hands. "Gratitude may be assumed, but love does not come at will." "Alas!" sighed Dimitri. This sentiment had an echo in his heart. Since that day, Monsieur, I have lived like the beasts; drank, ate, breathed. I sent my collection to Hamburg without one specimen of the Boryana variabilis. My friends accompanied me to the French steamer the day after the ball. They thought it wise to make the journey during the night, for fear of encountering M. Pericles' soldiers. We arrived without accident at Piraeus; but when a short distance from the shore, a half-dozen invisible muskets sent their bullets singing about our ears. It was the pretty Captain sending his adieux. I scoured the mountains of Malta, of Sicily, and of Italy, and my herbarium was much richer than I. My father, who had had the good sense to keep his inn, wrote to me, at Messina, that my efforts were appreciated. Perhaps I might find a place on arriving; but I determined to count on nothing.