rence that Monsieur Hanska was encroaching on some one else's
domain, with designs on the pickle-jar of another.

The Hanskas belonged to the Russian nobility and lived on an immense
estate in Ukraine, surrounded only by illiterate peasants. It was
another beautiful case of mismating: a man of forty who had gone the
pace marrying a girl of seventeen to educate her and reform himself.

Madame Hanska must have been a beauty in her youth--dark, dashing,
positive, saucy. She had enough will so that she never became a drudge
nor did she languish and fade. She was twenty-eight years old when she
first appeared in the field of our vision--twenty-eight, and becomingly
stout.

She had literary ambitions and had time to exercise them. Accidentally,
a volume of Balzac's "Scenes From a Private Life" had fallen in her way.
She glanced at it, and read a little here and there; then she read it
through. Balzac's consummate ease and indifference of style caught her.
She wanted to write just like Balzac. She was not exactly a writer--she
only had literary eczema. She sat down and wrote Balzac a letter,
sharply criticizing him for his satirical views of women.

It is a somewhat curious fact that when strangers write to authors,
about nine times out of ten it is to find fault. The person who is
thoroughly pleased does not take the trouble to say so, but the offended
one sits himself down and takes pen in hand. However, this is not wholly
uncomplimentary, since it proves at least two things: that the author is
being read, and that he is making an impression. Said old Doctor Johnson
to the aspiring poet, "Sir, I'll praise your book, but damn me if I'll
read it."

Unread books are constantly being praised, but the book that is warmly
denounced is making an impression.

Madame Hanska in her far-off solitude had read "Scenes From a Private
Life," paragraph by paragraph, and in certain places had seen her soul
laid bare. Very naively, in her letter to Balzac, in her criticism she
acknowledged the fact that the author had touched an exposed nerve, and
this helped to take the sting out of her condemnation. She signed
herself "The Stranger," but gave an address where to reply.

Balzac wrote the stranger a slapdash of a letter, as he was always
doing, and forgot the incident.

Long letters came from Madame; they were glanced at, but never read. But
Madame Hanska, living in exile, had opened up a new vein of ore for
herself. She was in commu