CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIRST LETTER.
Where, it becomes time to inquire, was Paulina Mary? How fared my intercourse with the sumptuous Hotel Crécy? That intercourse had, for an interval, been suspended by absence; M. and Miss de Bassompierre had been travelling, dividing some weeks between the provinces and the capital of France. Chance apprised me of their return very shortly after it took place.
I was walking one mild afternoon on a quiet boulevard, wandering slowly on, enjoying the benign April sun, and some thoughts not unpleasing, when I saw before me a group of riders, stopping as if they had just encountered, and exchanging greetings in the midst of the broad, smooth, linden-bordered path; on one side a middle-aged gentleman and young lady, on the other—a young and hand-
