I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops as I came along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an interruption: till at last this hitting my fancy, I had walked in.

**She was working a pair of ruffles as she sat in a low chair, on the far side of the shop facing the door

to Frès valontiers; most willingly, said she, laying her work down upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look, that had I been laying out fifty louis d'or with her, I should have said This woman is grateful». Inte

You must turn, monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take you must turn first to your left handmais prenez garde there are two turns and be so good as to take the secondthen go down a little way, and you'll see a church, and when you are past it, give yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will lead you to the foot of the pont neuf, which you must cross and there, any one will do himself the pleasure to shew you p

She repeated her instructions three times over to me with the same good-natured patience the third time as the first; and if tones and manners have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts which shut them out she seemed really interested, that I should not lose myself. 97

I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to do with the sense I had of her courtesy ; only I remember, when I told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very fall in her eyes, and that I repeated

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thanks as, often as she had done her instructions. I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot every tittle of what she had said =so looking back, and seeing her still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I went right or not I returned back, to ask her whether the first turn was to my right or left =for that I had absolutely forgot. Is it possible! said she, half laughing.'Tis very possible, replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman, than of her good advice.

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As this was the real truth she took it, as every woman takes a matter of right, with a slight cour= tesy.

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Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me, whilst she called a lad out of the back-shop to get ready a parcel of gloves. I am just going to send him, said she, with a packet into that quarter, and if you will have the complaisance to step in, it will be ready in a moment, and he shall at tend you to the place. So I walked in with her to the far side of the shop, and taking up the ruffle in my hand which she laid upon the chair, as if I had a mind to sit, she sat down herself in her low chair, and I instantly sat myself down beside her.

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He will be ready, monsieur, said she, in a moment And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shews it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart, which descends to the extremes (tonching her wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world Feel it, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two fore fin gers of my other to the artery=

- Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true de= votion, as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever How wouldst thou have laughed and moralized upon my new profession!= and thou shouldst have laughed and moralized on=Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said, « there are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse ». But a grisette's! thou wouldst have said and in an open shop, Yorick!

So much the better for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.

I RAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going

on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband coming unexpected from a back parlour into the shop, put me a little out in my reckoning.='Twas nobody but her husband, she said so I began a fresh score

Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he passed by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse

The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said I did him too much honour and having said that, he put on his hat, and walked out.

Good God! said I to myself, as he went out and can this man be the husband of this woman?de Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.

In London, a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife

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seem to be one bone and one flesh in the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one, sometimes the other has it, so as in general to be up= on a par, and to tally with each other as nearly as man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different: for the legislative and executive pow ers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerceless in his thrum night-cap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

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The genius of a people, where nothing but the monarchy is salique, having ceded this department with sundry others, totally to the women = by a continual higgling with customers of all ranks and sizes, from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant monsieur le mari is little better than the stone under your feet.

Surely surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle greetings, and this improvement of our natures from it I appeal to, as my evidence.

And how does it beat, monsieur? said she. With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected=She was going to say some thing civil in return but the lad came into the shop with the gloves A propos, said I ; I want a couple of pair myself.

THE GLOVES.

PARIS.

Tax beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and going behind the counter, reached down a parcel, and untied it: I advanced to the side over-against her; they were all too large. The beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand-It would not alter the dimensions She begged I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least-She held it open my hand slipped into it at once-It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little—no, said she, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of simple subs tlety where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together could not express them— they are communicated and caught so instantaneouss ly, that you can scarce say which party is the infec ter. I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands with-in our arms, we both lolled upon the counter = it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel lay between us.

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The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then side-ways to the window, then at the gloves and then at me. I was not disposed to break silence I followed her example: so I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then at the gloves, and then at her and so on alternately.

Ffound I lost considerably in every attack=she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eye-lashes with such penetration,