the general's family lived on the first floor, and the porter's family lived in the cellar. there was a vast distance between them - the whole first floor, as well as all the grades of society; but both families lived under the same roof, and their windows looked out in the same street and the same garden.

in this garden there was a blooming acacia - whenever it did bloom - and sometimes the smartly dressed nurse would sit under it with the still more smartly dressed child, the general's "little emilie."

the porter's little son, with his dark hair and large brown eyes, used to dance barefoot before them; and the little girl would laugh and stretch her tiny hands out to him. and if the general saw this from his window he would nod down at them and say, "charmant!" the general's wife, who was so young that she might almost have been her husband's daughter by an earlier marriage, never herself looked out into the yard; but she had given orders that the porter's boy could play near her own child, but never touch it. and the nurse strictly carried out the lady's orders.

the sun shone in upon those who dwelt on the first floor and those who lived in the cellar. the acacia put out its blossoms, they fell away, and new ones came the next year. the tree bloomed, and the porter's little son bloomed; he looked like a fresh tulip.

the general's little daughter grew to be a delicate child, as dainty as the rosy petal of the acacia blossom. now she seldom sat under the tree, for she took the fresh air in a carriage, she went with her mother on drives, and always nodded to the porter's son, george; yes, and even kissed her fingers toward him, till her mother told her she was now too grown-up for that.

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