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74 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 goddaughter, 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 today, 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 with him 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