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determination where to go;--I shall consider of that, said I, as I
walk along.


THE PULSE. PARIS.


Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, for smooth do ye make the
road of it! like grace and beauty, which beget inclinations to love
at first sight: 'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger
in.

- Pray, Madame, said I, have the goodness to tell me which way I
must turn to go to the Opera Comique?--Most willingly, Monsieur,
said she, laying aside her work. -

I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops, as I came
along, in search of a face not likely to be disordered by such an
interruption: till at last, this, hitting my fancy, I had walked
in.

She was working a pair of ruffles, as she sat in a low chair, on
the far side of the shop, facing the door.

- Tres volontiers, most willingly, said she, laying her work down
upon a chair next her, and rising up from the low chair she was
sitting in, with so cheerful a movement, and so cheerful a look,
that had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I should
have said--"This woman is grateful."

You must turn, Monsieur, said she, going with me to the door of the
shop, and pointing the way down the street I was to take,--you must
turn first to your left hand,--mais prenez garde--there are two
turns; and be so good as to take the second--then go down a little
way and you'll see a church: and, when you are past it, give
yourself the trouble to turn directly to the right, and that will
lead you to the foot of the Pont Neuf, which you must cross--and
there any one will do himself the pleasure to show you. -

She repeated her instructions three times over to me, with the same
goodnatur'd patience the third time as the first;--and if TONES AND
MANNERS have a meaning, which certainly they have, unless to hearts
which shut them out,--she seemed really interested that I should
not lose myself.

I will not suppose it was the woman's beauty, notwithstanding she
was the handsomest grisette, I think, I ever saw, which had much to
do with the sense I had of her courtesy; only I remember, when I
told her how much I was obliged to her, that I looked very full in
her eyes,--and that I repeated my thanks as often as she had done
her instructions.

I had not got ten paces from the door, before I found I had forgot
every tittle of what she had said;--so looking back, and seeing her
still standing in the door of the shop, as if to look whether I
went right or not,--I returned back to ask her, whether the first
turn was to my right or left,--for that I had absolutely forgot.--
Is it possible! said she, half laughing. 'Tis very possible,
replied I, when a man is thinking more of a woman than of her good
advice.

As this was the real truth--she took it, as every woman takes a
matter of right, with a slight curtsey.

- Attendez! said she, laying her hand upon my arm to detain me,

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