Then one fine day in April (the first, I verily believe) young Scatcherd proposed to Leah--and was refused--unconditionally refused--to the deep distress and dismay of her father and mother, who had thoroughly set their hearts on this match; and no wonder! But Leah was an obstinate young woman, it seems, and thoroughly knew her own mind, though she was so young--not seventeen. Was I a happy man? Ah, wasn't I! I was sent to Bordeaux by my father that very week on business--and promised myself I would soon be quite as good a catch or match as Scatcherd himself. I found Bordeaux the sunniest, sweetest town I had ever been in--and the Bordelais the jolliest men on earth; and as for the beautiful Bordelaises--ma foi! they might have been monkeys, for me! There was but one woman among women--one lily among flowers--everything else was a weed! Poor Scatcherd! when I met him, a few days later, he must have been struck by the sudden warmth of my friendship--the quick idiomatic cordiality of my French to him. This mutual friendship of ours lasted till his death in '88. And so did our mutual French! Except Barty, I never loved a man better; two years after his refusal by Leah he married my sister--a happy marriage, though a childless one; and except myself, Barty never had a more devoted friend. And now to Barty I will return. Part Sixth "From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind. Her worth, being mounted on the wind, Through all the world bears Rosalind. All the pictures, fairest lin'd, Are but black to Rosalind. Let no fair be kept in mind, But the fair of Rosalind. * * * * * "Thus Rosalind of many parts By heavenly synod was devis'd, Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, To have the touches dearest priz'd." --_As You Like It._ For many months Barty and his aunt lived their usual life in the Rue des Ursulines Blanches. He always looked back on those dreary months as on a long nightmare. Spring, summer, autumn, and another Christmas! His eye got worse and worse, and so interfered with the sight of the other that he had no peace till it was darkened wholly. He tried another doctor--Monsieur Goyers, professor at the liberal university of Ghent--who consulted with Dr. Noiret about him one day in Brussels, and afterwards told him that Noiret of Louvain, whom he described as a miserable Jesuit, was blinding him, and that he, this Goyers of Ghent, would cure him in six weeks. "Mettez-vous au régime des viandes saignantes!" had said Noiret; and Barty had put himself on a diet of underdone beef and mutton. "Mettez-vous au lait!" said Goyers--so he metted himself at the milk, as he called it--and put himself in Goyers's hands; and in six weeks got so much worse that he went back to Noiret and the regimen of the bleeding meats, which he loathed.