hich grows out of
the vicissitudes of a storm-tossed life, reflected thus:

"Didine is high-minded; when once she knows of my proposed marriage,
she will sacrifice herself for my future prospects, and I know how I can
manage to let her know." Delighted at having hit on a trick of which the
success seemed certain, he danced round to a familiar tune:

"_Larifla, fla, fla!_--And Didine once out of the way," he went
on, talking to himself, "I will treat Maman Cardot to a call and a
novelette: I have seduced her Felicie at Saint-Eustache--Felicie, guilty
through passion, bears in her bosom the pledge of our affection--and
_larifla, fla, fla!_ the father _Ergo_, the notary, his wife, and his
daughter are caught, nabbed----"

And, to her great amazement, Dinah discovered Etienne performing a
prohibited dance.

"Your arrival and our happiness have turned my head with joy," said he,
to explain this crazy mood.

"And I had fancied you had ceased to love me!" exclaimed the poor woman,
dropping the handbag she was carrying, and weeping with joy as she sank
into a chair.

"Make yourself at home, my darling," said Etienne, laughing in his
sleeve; "I must write two lines to excuse myself from a bachelor party,
for I mean to devote myself to you. Give your orders; you are at home."

Etienne wrote to Bixiou:

"MY DEAR BOY,--My Baroness has dropped into my arms, and will be
fatal to my marriage unless we perform one of the most familiar
stratagems of the thousand and one comedies at the Gymnase. I rely
on you to come here, like one of Moliere's old men, to scold your
nephew Leandre for his folly, while the Tenth Muse lies hidden in
my bedroom; you must work on her feelings; strike hard, be brutal,
offensive. I, you understand, shall express my blind devotion, and
shall seem to be deaf, so that you may have to shout at me.

"Come, if you can, at seven o'clock.

"Yours,

"E. LOUSTEAU."

Having sent this letter by a commissionaire to the man who, in all
Paris, most delighted in such practical jokes--in the slang of artists,
a _"charge"_--Lousteau made a great show of settling the Muse of
Sancerre in his apartment. He busied himself in arranging the luggage
she had brought, and informed her as to the persons and ways of the
house with such perfect good faith, and a glee which overflowed in kind
words and caresses, that Dinah believed herself the best-beloved woman
in the world. These rooms, where every