the slightest lines of the sketch that had been made thereon, as
if she hoped to find a solution to the mystery. Her irregular breathing,
and the bright flush which tinged her usually pale cheeks, would have
denoted to an eye-witness one of those tempests of the heart, the
physical manifestations of which are like those of a fever. The pale
winter flower dying under the snow had suddenly raised its drooping head
and recovered its color; the melancholy against which the young woman
had so vainly struggled had disappeared as if by enchantment. A little
bird surmounted by a coronet, the whole rather badly sketched, was the
strange talisman that had produced this change.

"They were commercial travellers," said the old aunt; "they always
pretend to know everything. One of them, doubtless, when reading the
well-known name of Monsieur de Bergenheim upon the wrapper, sketched the
animal in question. These gentlemen of industry usually have a rather
good education! But this is giving the affair more importance than it
merits. Leonard Rousselet," said she, raising her voice as a judge does
in court when pronouncing his charge, "you were wrong to let anything
addressed to your master leave your hands. We will excuse you this
time, but I warn you to be more careful in future; when you go to Madame
Gobillot's, you may say to Mademoiselle Reine, from me, that if she
wishes to read La Mode I shall be delighted to procure a subscriber to
one of our journals. You may retire now."

Without waiting for this invitation to be repeated, Rousselet backed out
of the room like an ambassador leaving the royal presence, escorted
by Constance acting as master of ceremonies. Not having calculated the
distance, he had just bumped against the door, when it suddenly opened
and a person of extreme vivacity bounded into the middle of the room.

It was a very young and petite lady, whose perfectly developed form
predicted an inclination to stoutness in the future. She belonged to
the Bergenheim family, if one could credit the resemblance between her
characteristic features and several of the old portraits in the room;
she wore a dark-brown riding-habit, a gray hat perched on one side,
showing on the left a mass of very curly, bright blond hair. This
coiffure and the long green veil, floating at each movement like the
plume in a helmet, gave a singularly easy air to the fresh face of this
pretty amazon, who brandished, in guise of a lance, a billiard c