60. The Fragment and the Bouquet. Paris

WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapt round the stalks of a bouquet 5 to keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the boulevards.-Then prithee, La Fleur, said I, step back to her to the Count de B--'s hotel, and see if you can get it-There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur-and away he flew.

In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment.-Juste ciel! in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of her-his faithless mistress had given his gage d'amour to one of the Count's footmen-the footman to a young sempstress-and the sempstress to a fiddler, with my fragment at the end of it.-Our misfortunes were involved together-I gave a sigh-and La Fleur echo'd it back again to my ear.

-How perfidious! cried La Fleur.-How unlucky! said I.-

-I should not have been mortified, Monsieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had lost it.-Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it.

Whether I did or no will be seen hereafter.