The delight of reading it had so completely absorbed him that he had ceased to see or hear anything around him.

With his cheeks flushed and his eyes moist, he repeated aloud a passage which had particularly affected him.
An exclamation uttered close by him awoke him from his ecstasy; he raised his head, and perceived the tradesman-looking person he had met before on the crossroad at Viroflay.
He was loaded with plants, the collection of which seemed to have put him into high good-humor.
"A thousand thanks, sir," said he to my father.

"I have found all that you told me of, and I am indebted to you for a charming walk." My father respectfully rose, and made a civil reply.

The stranger had grown quite familiar, and even asked if his young "brother botanist" did not think of returning to Paris.

My father replied in the affirmative, and opened his tin box to put his book back in it.
The stranger asked him with a smile if he might without impertinence ask the name of it.