'How can you withstand a favour said with feelings and sentiments so interesting?' demanded the handsome lady who escorted her; at whose advice, attended with a sign of approbation, the young stranger accepted the first cherry from the delightful bunch.
Emmelina presented the second to her mother, and the stranger offered the third to her charming companion; and the two young folks ate of them by turns till there remained only the leaves. They entered into conversation, when Madame de Clinville endeavoured by several judicious and direct questions to ascertain the name of the pretty green hat; but, perceiving the lady make a sign of caution to the unknown, she ceased further interrogatories, and they mutually adhered to the customary civilities, and separated with assurances of the pleasure so agreeable an interview had excited.
On returning home, Madame de Clinville and her daughter observed that a servant in red livery had followed them, who appeared to examine very minutely the number of the house in which they lived, and from that circumstance concluded the strange lady wished to learn their place of residence, notwithstanding she had taken every precaution to conceal her own, or the most distant knowledge of the young person in the green hat.
Several months having elapsed, Madame de Clinville thought no longer of the Tuileries adventure, when one morning, while at breakfast with Emmelina and Gustavus, her only son—a pupil at the Imperial Academy, seventeen years of age—the porter of the lodge entered the apartment, holding in one hand a ripe pineapple, and in the other a note, directed to Mademoiselle de Clinville, the contents as follows:
The happiness of sharing with others that which we possess enhances the value of its enjoyment.—Page 244.
'Having been presented with two pineapples, permit me to offer you one of them, and to recall to mind your own impressive sentiment—The happiness of sharing with others that which we possess enhances the value of its enjoyment.
'The Little Green Hat.'
In vain did Madame de Clinville and her children question the porter to know who brought this note. He answered: