And we should be so happy that you would say, 'How could I ever have dreamed of anything else ?'" "Alas! Jeanne," replied the Prince; "it is a charming and poetic idyl which you present to me.

We should flee far from the world, eh?
We should go to an unknown spot and try to regain paradise lost.

How long would that happiness last?
A season during the springtime of our youth.
Then autumn would come, sad and harsh.

Our illusions would vanish like the swallows in romances, and we should find, with alarm, that we had taken the dream of a day for eternal happiness! Forgive my speaking plain words of disenchantment," added Serge, seeing Jeanne rising abruptly, "but our life is being settled at this moment.

Reason alone should guide us." "And I beseech you to be guided only by your heart," cried Mademoiselle de Cernay, seizing the hands of the Prince, and pressing them with her trembling fingers.