either bank formed an edging of black velvet ribbon. In the distance, especially, the material became quite admirable and precious, like some fairy's tunic of enchanted gauze; beyond the strip of dark green satin, with which the shadow of the bridges girdled the Seine, were plastrons of gold and skirts of some plaited material the colour of the sun. The immense sky formed a vaulted roof above this water, these low rows of houses, this foliage of the two parks. Weary at times of this boundless horizon, Renée, already a big girl, and full of a carnal curiosity picked up at school, would take a peep at Petit's floating swimming-baths moored to the extremity of the island. She sought to catch a glimpse, between the waving linen clothes hung up on lines in place of a roof, of the men in their bathing drawers, and with their chests all bare. CHAPTER III. Maxime remained at the college of Plassans until the holidays of 1854. He was thirteen years and a few months old and had just passed through the fifth class. It was then that his father decided that he should come to Paris, reflecting that a son of Maxime's age would consolidate his position and establish him for good in the part he played as a rich and serious re-married widower. When he mentioned his plan to Renée, towards whom he prided himself upon being extremely gallant, she negligently answered: "Quite so, let the little fellow come. He will amuse us a bit. One is bored to death of a morning." The little fellow arrived a week afterwards. He was already a tall, spare urchin with an effeminate face, a delicate, wide-awake look, and pale flaxen hair. But how he was rigged out; good heavens! Cropped to the ears, with his hair so short that the whiteness of his skull was barely covered with a slight shadow, he moreover wore a pair of trousers too short for his legs, carter's shoes, and a frightfully threadbare tunic which was much too full and made him almost look hunchbacked. Thus accoutred, surprised by the new things he saw, he looked around him, not at all timidly but with the savage, cunning air of a precocious child who hesitates about trusting himself to anyone at once. A servant had just brought him from the railway station, and he was in the large drawing-room, delighted with the gilding of the furniture and the ceiling, completely happy at sight of this luxury amid which he was going to live, when Renée, returning from her tailor's, swept in like a gust of wind. She threw off her hat and the white burnous which she had placed upon her shoulders to shield her from the cold, which was already keen; and she appeared before Maxime--stupefied with admiration--in all the glow of her marvellous costume.