Awhile I listened to the lullaby of bees humming in the berceau, and
watched, through the glass door and the tender, lightly-strewn spring
foliage, Madame Beck and a gay party of friends, whom she had
entertained that day at dinner after morning mass, walking in the
centre-alley under orchard boughs dressed at this season in blossom,
and wearing a colouring as pure and warm as mountain-snow at sun-rise.
My principal attraction towards this group of guests lay, I remember,
in one figure--that of a handsome young girl whom I had seen before as
a visitor at Madame Beck's, and of whom I had been vaguely told that
she was a "filleule," or god-daughter, of M. Emanuel's, and that
between her mother, or aunt, or some other female relation of hers,
and the Professor, had existed of old a special friendship. M. Paul
was not of the holiday band to-day, but I had seen this young girl
with him ere now, and as far as distant observation could enable me to
judge, she seemed to enjoy him with the frank ease of a ward with an
indulgent guardian. I had seen her run up to him, put her arm through
his, and hang upon him. Once, when she did so, a curious sensation had
struck through me--a disagreeable anticipatory sensation--one of the
family of presentiments, I suppose--but I refused to analyze or dwell
upon it. While watching this girl, Mademoiselle Sauveur by name, and
following the gleam of her bright silk robe (she was always richly
dressed, for she was said to be wealthy) through the flowers and the
glancing leaves of tender emerald, my eyes became dazzled--they
closed; my lassitude, the warmth of the day, the hum of bees and
birds, all lulled me, and at last I slept.
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