“You wish, then, to go to Nice, my child?”
“No, not I exactly, but a brave and honest sailor who—who—”
“Ah, I understand, I understand,” said the watchman, interrupting Stephanette’s stammering; “you mean young Bernard, patron of the tartan, the Sacred Balm.”
“No, no, Master Peyrou, I assure you I do not mean him,” said the girl, turning as red as a cherry.
“Come, come, you need not blush like that,” and the watchman added, in a lower tone: “Was the beautiful bouquet of green thyme, that he tied three days ago to your window bar with rose coloured ribbon, to your taste?”
“A bouquet of green thyme! What bouquet are you talking about, Master Peyrou?”
The watchman held up a threatening finger to Stephanette and said: “What! last Thursday, at daybreak, did not the patron Bernard carry a bouquet to your window?”
“Wait,—let me see, Master Peyrou,” said the young girl, with an air of recalling something to her memory; “was it then yesterday that, in opening my casement, I found something like a bundle of dried herbs?”
“Stephanette, Stephanette! you cannot deceive the old watchman. Listen; patron Bernard had hardly descended, when you came and untied the rose coloured ribbon, and put the bouquet in a pretty terra-cotta vase, and you have watered it every morning; yesterday was the only day you neglected it, and it has withered—”
The young girl stared at the watchman in utter amazement. This revelation seemed like sorcery.