In such conversation we passed an hour or two very cheerfully; at the end of which time I took my leave, and left the pair to conclude their evening alone. It was now about two o'clock, on a fine April day; and, walking slowly along, I meditated over all the strange turns of that strange and unaccountable thing, fate, which, principally by the means of a complete stranger, had conducted the _ci-devant_ printer in less than a year from the foot of the gallows to a peaceful retirement in a beautiful country. On entering the park, I took the shady walk by the bank of the stream, both because the warmth of the day made a shelter from the sun not unpleasant, though the year was yet so young, and because I always had an indescribable pleasure in sauntering by a running water, and gazing upon the current gushing brightly by me. The banks here were irregular, sometimes high and overhanging, sometimes sloping softly down, and dipping their turf into the stream; and, as I often paused to gaze, and ponder, and revolve a number of sweet sunshiny dreams that were now very common to my mind, I was at least twice the length of time in the walk that I needed to have been. Luckily did it happen that I was so. When I had got about half way to the château, I perceived that there were others in the walk besides myself; and, straining my eyes a little, I saw that it was Madame de Villardin, with a servant a step behind her, and her little girl running on before. The Duchess approached but slowly, with her fine eyes, as usual now, bent pensively upon the ground, and her hands, which were very beautiful, clasped together, and resting on her waist. The little girl, full of the joy and vivid life of youth, ran backwards and forwards before her mother, now gathering a flower, now peeping over at the stream, and receiving, from time to time, a grave caution from the soubrette, who walked behind, against approaching too near the water. As soon as she saw me, however, the little Laura had a new object of attention, and running along the walk like light, she came towards her playfellow. The impulse, however, was soon over; and, ere she had half reached me, she slackened her pace on hearing the voices of her father and the Confessor in one of the other paths hard by, and was turning gaily to seek them, when an early butterfly started up from the bosom of a flower and caught her notice. The painted insect fluttered on before her with that sort of faint impotent flight which leads so many a child to follow on for miles, still hoping to catch it at every step. Eagerly she pursued, with her whole young soul beaming out of her beautiful eyes. For some way the butterfly flew on down the alley, and Laura de Villardin was close upon it; when rising a little in the air, it turned its course towards the opposite bank of the river. With a bound forward, Mademoiselle de Villardin strove to catch it ere it escaped for ever, slipped her foot