st
her breath, and even spoke worse French than she needed to have done.

"Be pl--pleased, sir--to enter. Clotilde, my daughter--Monsieur
Grandissime. P-please be seated, sir. Monsieur Grandissime,"--she
dropped into a chair with an air of vivacity pitiful to behold,--"I
suppose you have come for the rent." She blushed even more violently
than before, and her hand stole upward upon her heart to stay its
violent beating. "Clotilde, dear, I should be glad if you would put the
fire before the screen; it is so much too warm." She pushed her chair
back and shaded her face with her hand. "I think the warmer is growing
weather outside, is it--is it not?"

The struggles of a wounded bird could not have been more piteous.
Monsieur Grandissime sought to speak. Clotilde, too, nerved by the sight
of her mother's embarrassment, came to her support, and she and the
visitor spoke in one breath.

"Maman, if Monsieur--pardon--"

"Madame Nancanou, the--pardon, Mademoiselle--"

"I have presumed to call upon you," resumed M. Grandissime, addressing
himself now to both ladies at once, "to see if I may enlist you in a
purely benevolent undertaking in the interest of one who has been
unfortunate--a common acquaintance--"

"Common acquaint--" interrupted Aurora, with a hostile lighting of her
eyes.

"I believe so--Professor Frowenfeld." M. Grandissme saw Clotilde start,
and in her turn falsely accuse the fire by shading her face: but it was
no time to stop. "Ladies," he continued, "please allow me, for the sake
of the good it may effect, to speak plainly and to the point."

The ladies expressed acquiescence by settling themselves to hear.

"Professor Frowenfeld had the extraordinary misfortune this morning to
incur the suspicion of having entered a house for the purpose of--at
least, for a bad design--"

"He is innocent!" came from Clotilde, against her intention; Aurora
covertly put out a hand, and Clotilde clutched it nervously.

"As, for example, robbery," said the self-recovered Aurora, ignoring
Clotilde's look of protestation.

"Call it so," responded M. Grandissime. "Have you heard at whose house
this was?"

"No, sir."

"It was at the house of Palmyre Philosophe."

"Palmyre Philosophe!" exclaimed Aurora, in low astonishment. Clotilde
let slip, in a tone of indignant incredulity, a soft "Ah!" Aurora
turned, and with some hope that M. Grandissime would not understand,
ventured to say in Spanish, quietly:

"Come, come,