Rather was it a mood of song and joy and things of light, and his mind was running on a string of rhymes which mentally he offered up to his divinity.

A high-born lady was she, daughter to his lordly employer, the most noble Marquis of Bellecour.

And he a secretary, a clerk! Aye, but a clerk with a great soul, a secretary with a great belief in the things to come, which in that musty tome beneath his arm were dimly prophesied.
And as he roamed beside the brook, his feet treading the elastic, velvety turf, and crushing heedlessly late primrose and stray violet, his blood quickened by the soft spring breeze, fragrant with hawthorn and the smell of the moist brown earth, La Boulaye's happiness gathered strength from the joy that on that day of spring seemed to invest all Nature.

An old-world song stole from his firm lips-at first timidly, like a thing abashed in new surroundings, then in bolder tones that echoed faintly through the trees "Si le roi m'avait donne Paris, sa grande ville, Et qui'il me fallut quitter L'amour de ma mie, Je dirais au roi Louis Reprenez votre Paris.
J'aime mieux ma mie, O gai! J'aime mieux ma mie!" How mercurial a thing is a lover's heart! Here was one whose habits were of solemnity and gloomy thought turned, so joyous that he could sing aloud, alone in the midst of sunny Nature, for no better reason than that Suzanne de Bellecour had yesternight smiled as--for some two minutes by the clock--she had stood speaking with him.
"Presumptuous that I am," said he to the rivulet, to contradict himself the next moment.

"But no; the times are changing.