this morning examining the exterior as I was on my way to Sainte-
Adresse."

"Oh, an architect, was he? he puzzled me," said Modeste, for whom
Butscha had thus gained time to recover herself.

Dumay looked askance at Butscha. Modeste, fully warned, recovered her
impenetrable composure. Dumay's distrust was now thoroughly aroused,

and he resolved to go the mayor's office early in the morning and
ascertain if the architect had really been in Havre the previous day.

Butscha, on the other hand, was equally determined to go to Paris and
find out something about Canalis.

Gobenheim came to play whist, and by his presence subdued and
compressed all this fermentation of feelings. Modeste awaited her

mother's bedtime with impatience. She intended to write, but never did
so except at night. Here is the letter which love dictated to her

while all the world was sleeping:--
To Monsieur de Canalis,--Ah! my friend, my well-beloved! What

atrocious falsehoods those portraits in the shop-windows are! And
I, who made that horrible lithograph my joy!--I am humbled at the

thought of loving one so handsome. No; it is impossible that those
Parisian women are so stupid as not to have seen their dreams

fulfilled in you. You neglected! you unloved! I do not believe a
word of all that you have written me about your lonely and obscure

life, your hunger for an idol,--sought in vain until now. You have
been too well loved, monsieur; your brow, white and smooth as a

magnolia leaf, reveals it; and it is I who must be neglected,--for
who am I? Ah! why have you called me to life? I felt for a moment

as though the heavy burden of the flesh was leaving me; my soul
had broken the crystal which held it captive; it pervaded my whole

being; the cold silence of material things had ceased; all things
in nature had a voice and spoke to me. The old church was

luminous. It's arched roof, brilliant with gold and azure like
those of an Italian cathedral, sparkled above my head. Melodies

such as the angels sang to martyrs, quieting their pains, sounded
from the organ. The rough pavements of Havre seemed to my feet a

flowery mead; the sea spoke to me with a voice of sympathy, like
an old friend whom I had never truly understood. I saw clearly how

the roses in my garden had long adored me and bidden me love; they
lifted their heads and smiled as I came back from church. I heard

your name, "Melchior," chiming in the flower-bells; I saw it
written on the clouds. Yes, yes, I live, I am living, thanks to

thee,--my poet, more beautiful than that cold, conventional Lord
Byron, with a face as dull as the English climate. One glance of

thine, thine Orient glance, pierced through my double veil and
sent thy blood to my heart, and from thence to my head and feet.

Ah! that is not the life our mother gave us. A hurt to thee would
hurt me too at the very instant it was given,--my life exists by

thy thought only. I know now the purpose of the divinefaculty of
music; the angels invented it to utter love. Ah, my Melchior, to

have genius and to have beauty is too much; a man should be made
to choose between them at his birth.

When I think of the treasures of tenderness and affection which
you have given me, and more especially for the last month, I ask

myself if I dream. No, but you hide some mystery; what woman can
yield you up to me and not die? Ah! jealousy has entered my heart

with love,--love in which I could not have believed. How could I
have imagined so mighty a conflagration? And now--strange and

inconceivable revulsion!--I would rather you were ugly.
What follies I committed after I came home! The yellow dahlias

reminded me of your waistcoat, the white roses were my loving
friends; I bowed to them with a look that belonged to you, like

all that is of me. The very color of the gloves, moulded to hands
of a gentleman, your step along the nave,--all, all, is so printed

on my memory that sixty years hence I shall see the veriest
trifles of this day of days,--the color of the atmosphere, the ray

of sunshine that flickered on a certain pillar; I shall hear the
prayer your step interrupted; I shall inhale the incense of the

altar; forever I shall feel above our heads the priestly hands
that blessed us both as you passed by me at the closing

benediction. The good Abbe Marcelin married us then! The
happiness, above that of earth, which I feel in this new world of

unexpected emotions can only be equalled by the joy of telling it
to you, of sending it back to him who poured it into my heart with

the lavishness of the sun itself. No more veils, no more
disguises, my beloved. Come back to me, oh, come back soon. With

joy I now unmask.
You have no doubt heard of the house of Mignon in Havre? Well, I

am, through an irreparable misfortune, its sole heiress. But you
are not to look down upon us, descendant of an Auvergne knight;

the arms of the Mignon de La Bastie will do no dishonor to those
of Canalis. We bear gules, on a bend sable four bezants or;

quarterly four crosses patriarchal or; a cardinal's hat as crest,
and the fiocchi for supports. Dear, I will be faithful to our

motto: "Una fides, unus Dominus!"--the true faith, and one only
Master.

Perhaps, my friend, you will find some irony in my name, after all
that I have done, and all that I herein avow. I am named Modeste.

Therefore I have not deceived you by signing "O. d'Este M."
Neither have I misled you about our fortune; it will amount, I

believe, to the sum which rendered you so virtuous. I know that to
you money is a consideration of small importance; therefore I

speak of it without reserve. Let me tell you how happy it makes me
to give freedom of action to our happiness,--to be able to say,

when the fancy for travel takes us, "Come, let us go in a
comfortable carriage, sitting side by side, without a thought of

money"--happy, in short, to tell the king, "I have the fortune
which you require in your peers." Thus Modeste Mignon can be of

service to you, and her gold will have the noblest of uses.
As to your servant herself,--you did see her once, at her window.

Yes, "the fairest daughter of Eve the fair" was indeed your
unknown damozel; but how little the Modeste of to-day resembles

her of that long past era! That one was in her shroud, this one--
have I made you know it?--has received from you the life of life.

Love, pure, and sanctioned, the love my father, now returning
rich and prosperous, will authorize, has raised me with its

powerful yet childlike hand from the grave in which I slept. You
have wakened me as the sun wakens the flowers. The eyes of your

beloved are no longer those of the little Modeste so daring in her
ignorance,--no, they are dimmed with the sight of happiness, and

the lids close over them. To-day I tremble lest I can never
deserve my fate. The king has come in his glory; my lord has now a

subject who asks pardon for the liberties she has taken, like the
gambler with loaded dice after cheating Monsieur de Grammont.

My cherished poet! I will be thy Mignon--happier far than the
Mignon of Goethe, for thou wilt leave me in mine own land,--in thy

heart. Just as I write this pledge of our betrothal a nightingale
in the Vilquin park answers for thee. Ah, tell me quick that his

note, so pure, so clear, so full, which fills my heart with joy
and love like an Annunciation, does not lie to me.

My father will pass through Paris on his way from Marseilles; the
house of Mongenod, with whom he corresponds, will know his

address. Go to him, my Melchior, tell him that you love me; but do
not try to tell him how I love you,--let that be forever between

ourselves and God. I, my dear one, am about to tell everything to
my mother. Her heart will justify my conduct; she will rejoice in

our secret poem, so romantic, human and divine in one.
You have the confession of the daughter; you must now obtain the

consent of the Comte de La Bastie, father of your
Modeste.

P.S.--Above all, do not come to Havre without having first
obtained my father's consent. If you love me you will not fail to

find him on his way through Paris.
"What are you doing, up at this hour, Mademoiselle Modeste?" said the