de of steel,'
and we all of us went into her room, with radiant hearts, and
Only-One-Eye, as spokesman for us all, said to her: 'The danger is all
over, little Fly, and we are all happy again.'

"Then, for the second time, she wept in our presence, and, with her eyes
full of tears, she said, hesitatingly:

"'Oh! If you only knew, if you only knew ... what a grief it is ... what
a grief it is to me ... I shall never get over it.' 'Over what, little
Fly?' 'Over having killed it, for I did kill it! Oh! Without intending
to! Oh! how grieved I am!...'

"She was sobbing, and we stood round, deeply touched, but without knowing
what to say, and she went on: 'Have you seen it?' And we replied with
one voice: 'Yes.' 'It was a boy, was it not?' 'Yes.' 'Beautiful, was it
not?' We hesitated a good deal, but Petit-Bleu, who was less scrupulous
than the rest of us, made up his mind to affirm it, and said: 'Very
beautiful.'

"He committed a mistake, however, for she began to sob, and almost to
scream with grief, and Only-One-Eye, who perhaps loved her more than the
rest of us did, had a happy thought. Kissing her eyes, that were dimmed
with tears, he said: 'Console yourself, little Fly, console yourself; we
will make another for you.'

"Her innate sense of the ridiculous was suddenly excited, and
half-convinced, and half-joking, still tearful and her heart sore with
grief, she said, looking at us all: 'Do you really mean it?' And we
replied all at once:

"'We really mean it.'"

THE MAD WOMAN

"I can tell you a terrible story about the Franco-Prussian war,"
Monsieur d'Endolin said to some friends assembled in the smoking-room of
Baron de Ravot's chateau. "You know my house in the Faubourg de Cormeil.
I was living there when the Prussians came, and I had for a neighbor a
kind of a mad woman, who had lost her senses in consequence of a series
of misfortunes, as at the age of seven and twenty she had lost her
father, her husband and her newly born child, all in the space of a
month.

"When death has once entered into a house, it almost invariably returns
immediately, as if it knew the way, and the young woman, overwhelmed
with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. Then, a
species of calm lassitude succeeded that violent crisis, and she
remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes.
Every time they tried to make her get up, she screamed as if they were
about to kill her, and so