is
fellow-traveller, who had not stirred all night, and seemed still to be
sound asleep.

M. d'Etraille made use of the opportunity to brush his hair and his
beard, and to try to freshen himself up a little generally, for a night's
travel does not improve one's appearance when one has attained a certain
age.

A great poet has said:

"When we are young, our mornings are triumphant!"

Then we wake up with a cool skin, a bright eye, and glossy hair.

As one grows older one wakes up in a very different condition. Dull eyes,
red, swollen cheeks, dry lips, hair and beard disarranged, impart an old,
fatigued, worn-out look to the face.

The baron opened his travelling case, and improved his looks as much as
possible.

The engine whistled, the train stopped, and his neighbor moved. No doubt
he was awake. They started off again, and then a slanting ray of sunlight
shone into the carriage and on the sleeper, who moved again, shook
himself, and then his face could be seen.

It was a young, fair, pretty, plump woman, and the baron looked at her in
amazement. He did not know what to think. He could really have sworn that
it was his wife, but wonderfully changed for the better: stouter
--why she had grown as stout as he was, only it suited her much
better than it did him.

She looked at him calmly, did not seem to recognize him, and then slowly
laid aside her wraps. She had that quiet assurance of a woman who is sure
of herself, who feels that on awaking she is in her full beauty and
freshness.

The baron was really bewildered. Was it his wife, or else as like her as
any sister could be? Not having seen her for six years, he might be
mistaken.

She yawned, and this gesture betrayed her. She turned and looked at him
again, calmly, indifferently, as if she scarcely saw him, and then looked
out of the window again.

He was upset and dreadfully perplexed, and kept looking at her sideways.

Yes; it was surely his wife. How could he possibly have doubted it? There
could certainly not be two noses like that, and a thousand recollections
flashed through his mind. He felt the old feeling of the intoxication of
love stealing over him, and he called to mind the sweet odor of her skin,
her smile when she put her arms on to his shoulders, the soft intonations
of her voice, all her graceful, coaxing ways.

But how she had changed and improved! It was she and yet not she. She
seemed riper, more developed, more of a woman, more se