June 1st Sebastian Pasquale dined with me this evening.

Antoinette, forgetful of idolatrous practices, devoted the concentration of her being to the mysteries of her true religion.

The excellence of the result affected Pasquale so strongly that with his customary disregard of convention he insisted on Antoinette being summoned to receive his congratulations.
He rose, made her a bow as if she were a Marquise of pre-revolutionary days.
"It is a meal," said he, bunching up his fingers to his mouth and kissing them open, "that one should have taken not sitting, but kneeling." "You stole that from Heine," said I, when the enraptured creature had gone, "and you gave it out to Antoinette as if it were your own." "My good Ordeyne," said he, "did you ever hear of a man giving anything authentic to a woman ?" "You know much more about the matter than I do," I replied, and Pasquale laughed.
It has been a pleasure to see him again--a creature of abounding vitality whom time cannot alter.

He is as lithe-limbed as when he was a boy, and as lithe-witted.

I don't know how his consciousness could have arrived at appreciation of Antoinette's cooking, for he talked all through dinner, giving me an account of his mirific adventures in foreign cities.