is last half-penny on her.

"But with all that, Lilie had the voice of a schoolgirl, of some little
innocent creature who still uses a skipping-rope and wears short
dresses, and had that clear, innocent laugh which reminds people of
wedding bells. Sometimes, for fun, I would kneel down before her, like
before the statue of a saint, and clasping my hands as if in prayer, I
used to say: '_Sancta Lilie, ora pro nobis!_'

"One evening, at Biarritz, when the sky had the dull glare of intense
heat and the sea was of a sinister, inky black, and was swelling and
rolling enormous phosphorescent waves onto the beach at _Port-Vieux_,
Lilie, who was listless and strange, and was making holes in the sand
with the heels of her boots, suddenly exclaimed in one of those longings
for confidence which women sometimes feel, and for which they are sorry
as soon as their story is done:

"'Ah! My dear fellow, I do not deserve to be canonized, and my life is
rather a subject for a drama than a chapter from the Gospels or the
Golden Legend. As long as I can remember anything, I can remember
seeing myself wrapped in lace, being carried by a woman, and
continually being made a fuss with, like children are who have been
waited for for a long time, and who are spoiled more than others.

"'Those kisses were so nice, that I still seem to feel their sweetness,
and I preserve the remembrance of them in a little place in my heart,
like one preserves some lucky talisman in a reliquary. I still seem to
remember an indistinct landscape lost in the mist, outlines of trees
which frightened me as they creaked and groaned in the wind, and ponds
on which swans were sailing. And when I look in the glass for a long
time, merely for the sake of seeing myself, it seems to me as if I
recognized the woman who formerly used to kiss me most frequently, and
speak to me in a more loving voice than anyone else did. But what
happened afterwards?

"'Was I carried off, or sold to some strolling circus owner by a
dishonest servant? I do not know; I have never been able to find out;
but I remember that my whole childhood was spent in a circus which
traveled from fair to fair, and from place to place, with files of vans,
processions of animals, and noisy music.

"'I was as tiny as an insect, and they taught me difficult tricks, to
dance on the tight-rope and to perform on the slack-rope.... I was
beaten as if I had been a bit of plaster, and I more frequently had a
piec