Without questioning his meaning, or sounding his plan, or offering the semblance of an objection, I retied my bonnet: I was ready.

The route he took was by the boulevards: he several times made me sit down on the seats stationed under the lime-trees; he did not ask if I was tired, but looked, and drew his own conclusions.

“All these weary days,” said he, repeating my words, with a gentle, kindly mimicry of my voice and foreign accent, not new from his lips, and of which the playful banter never wounded, not even when coupled, as it often was, with the assertion, that however I might write his language, I spoke and always should speak it imperfectly and hesitatingly. “ ‘All these weary days’ I have not for one hour forgotten you. Faithful women err in this, that they think themselves the sole faithful of God’s creatures. On a very fervent and living truth to myself, I, too, till lately scarce dared count, from any quarter; but⁠—look at me.”