On its being opened he enquired for
Madame Merle; whereupon the servant, a neat, plain woman, with a
French face and a lady's maid's manner, ushered him into a
diminutive drawing-room and requested the favour of his name. "Mr.
Edward Rosier," said the young man, who sat down to wait till his
hostess should appear.
The reader will perhaps not have forgotten that Mr. Rosier was an
ornament of the American circle in Paris, but it may also be
remembered that he sometimes vanished from its horizon. He had spent a
portion of several winters at Pau, and as he was a gentleman of
constituted habits he might have continued for years to pay his annual
visit to this charming resort. In the summer of 1876, however, an
incident befell him which changed the current not only of his
thoughts, but of his customary sequences. He passed a month in the
Upper Engadine and encountered at Saint Moritz a charming young
girl. To this little person he began to pay, on the spot, particular
attention: she struck him as exactly the household angel he had long
been looking for. He was never precipitate, he was nothing if not
discreet, so he forbore for the present to declare his passion; but it
seemed to him when they parted-the young lady to go down into Italy
and her admirer to proceed to Geneva, where he was under bonds to join
other friends that he should be romantically wretched if he were not
to see her again.
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