larize an old woman and her boy."

"Dr. and Mrs. Bretton were at M. de Bassompierre's this evening?"

"Ay, ay! as large as life; and missy played the hostess. What a
conceited doll it is!"

Soured and listless, Miss Fanshawe was beginning to disclose the causes
of her prostrate condition. There had been a retrenchment of incense, a
diversion or a total withholding of homage and attention coquetry had
failed of effect, vanity had undergone mortification. She lay fuming in
the vapours.

"Is Miss de Bassompierre quite well now?" I asked.

"As well as you or I, no doubt; but she is an affected little thing,
and gave herself invalid airs to attract medical notice. And to see the
old dowager making her recline on a couch, and 'my son John'
prohibiting excitement, etcetera--faugh! the scene was quite sickening."

"It would not have been so if the object of attention had been changed:
if you had taken Miss de Bassompierre's place."

"Indeed! I hate 'my son John!'"

"'My son John!'--whom do you indicate by that name? Dr. Bretton's
mother never calls him so."

"Then she ought. A clownish, bearish John he is."

"You violate the truth in saying so; and as the whole of my patience is
now spun off the distaff, I peremptorily desire you to rise from that
bed, and vacate this room."

"Passionate thing! Your face is the colour of a coquelicot. I wonder
what always makes you so mighty testy a l'endroit du gros Jean? 'John
Anderson, my Joe, John!' Oh, the distinguished name!"

Thrilling with exasperation, to which it would have been sheer folly to
have given vent--for there was no contending with that unsubstantial
feather, that mealy-winged moth--I extinguished my taper, locked my
bureau, and left her, since she would not leave me. Small-beer as she
was, she had turned insufferably acid.

The morrow was Thursday and a half-holiday. Breakfast was over; I had
withdrawn to the first classe. The dreaded hour, the post-hour, was
nearing, and I sat waiting it, much as a ghost-seer might wait his
spectre. Less than ever was a letter probable; still, strive as I
would, I could not forget that it was possible. As the moments
lessened, a restlessness and fear almost beyond the average assailed
me. It was a day of winter east wind, and I had now for some time
entered into that dreary fellowship with the winds and their changes,
so little known, so incomprehensible to the healthy. The north and east
owned a terrific influence, making