told
you about their quiet family evenings with my uncle's pipe and
schiedam, in which domino-parties of three were varied by the delightful
treat of a symphony from one of the great masters, executed in a
masterly style by a pretty little plump hand covered with pink dimples.

Once or twice a week, as became a favourite and affectionate nephew, I
came into the midst of this idyll of the land of tulips; and always
quitted it full of sweetmeats and good advice.

However, the day before yesterday, Ernest, the second of my cousins, who
is five years old, suddenly caught a violent fever; he grew scarlet in
the face, and his stomach swelled up like a balloon.

My poor aunt, having exhausted all her arsenal of aperients and
astringents against what she reckoned to be an indigestion due to
preserved plums, quite lost her head. In the afternoon the child grew
worse. Where in Paris could she find a Dutch doctor? She could only
place confidence in a Dutchman. At the end of her wits with fear, she
thought she would go after my uncle or me; so, without thinking any more
about it, as she knew our address, she takes a cab and gets driven to
the Rue de Varennes, believing in her simplicity that this was where our
shops and offices were.

She arrives and asks for my uncle. Being seven o'clock, the hall-porter
tells her that the captain will soon be in, shows her to the staircase,
and rings the bell; one of the men-servants asks her for her name, and
then opens the folding doors, announcing--

"Madame Barbassou!"

It is my aunt Eudoxia who receives her.

My aunt Van Cloth, who is distracted with anxiety, thinks that she sees
before her some lady of my family, and in order to excuse herself for
disturbing her, begins by saying that she has come to see Captain
Barbassou, _her husband_.

Imagine the stupefaction of my aunt Eudoxia! But being too astute to
betray herself, she lets the other speak, questions her and learns the
whole story. Then, like the good soul that she is, and feeling sorry for
poor Ernest and his swollen stomach, she rings and orders the carriage
to be ready, so that she may go as soon as possible to her own doctor;
upon which my aunt Van Cloth, who is of an effusive nature, embraces her
most affectionately, calling her her dearest friend.

Just then my uncle arrives.

I was not present; but my aunt Eudoxia, who continues to laugh over it,
has related to me all the details of the affair. At the sight of thi