"Oh, how nice and warm!" she said, and she sat on the (bearskin at my feet.

She was charming in her cambric peignoir of such transparent texture that the skin could be seen through it. She looked round and said:

"Dear me, how pretty everything is here. Am I to live in this place?"

"Yes, if you like, but we must have somebody's permission."

"Whose?"

"Your father's."

"My father's! But will he not be glad when he knows I have a beautiful room and plenty of leisure time for study?"

"To study what?"

"Ah! I had forgotten. I must explain."

"Do, my dear girl, by all means. You know you must tell me all," said I, kissing her.

"You remember one day you gave me a ticket for a play?"

"Yes, I do remember."

"It was for the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where they played Antony, by M. Dumas."

"It is an immoral play, not at all fit for young girls to see."

"I did not think so at all. I was quite taken up with it, and ever since that day, I told my sister and Monsieur Ernest that I wished to appear on the stage."

"You don't say so?"

"Then Monsieur Ernest and my sister exchanged glances. 'Well,' said my sister, 'if she has any taste at all for it, it would be preferable to the milliner's business."

"'And then,' said Monsieur Ernest, With my journal, the Gazette des Theatres, I can give her a lift."

"'Well, that will be just the thing for her.'"

"Madame Beruchet was told that I should sleep at my sister's and that I should not return until next day. After the play we returned to the Rue Ghaptal and I began to repeat the principal scenes which I remembered, and I set to acting all the while moving my arms about like this-"

But meanwhile Violette unconsciously had opened her peignoir and disclosed some lovely treasures to my view.

I took her in my arms, set her on my knee, and she nestled lovingly against me.