"He is there!" she said to herself, trembling with excitement; "he is still there! Mon Dieu! why does he keep looking at our house?"
The little innocent guessed well enough why he did it; but there are things which we do not choose to admit at once, even to ourselves, especially when they give us pleasure; we are much less ceremonious with those that make us unhappy.
The next day, Bathilde did not fail to go early to the linen closet; she resumed her manœuvres of the day before, and looked into the street after cautiously raising a corner of the curtain.
This lasted four days, during which she saw the handsome cavalier almost always in the street, gazing sadly at the windows, with his hand to his heart, and probably sighing; she did not hear the sigh, but she divined it.
On the fifth day, she no longer had the heart to keep the window closed, and yet she did not wish to appear on the balcony without a reason for going there.
Suddenly she remembered that she had a rosebush in her chamber, where, by the way, it rarely received a ray of sunlight.
She ran instantly to Master Landry and said:
"Father, you know I have a lovely rosebush, which Ambroisine gave me two years ago, on my birthday."
"Very likely; what then?"
"It is in my room, on the window sill, but I have just noticed that it's dying, the leaves are turning yellow. It's because it doesn't get enough air. The yard is so small, and then the steam from the baths is bad for it, perhaps. I should be awfully sorry if it should die. Will you let me put it on the balcony outside the window of the linen closet? There is nothing there, so it won't be in the way; it will have the sun, and I am sure that it will do better there."