of going away. She saw me,
scanned me from head to foot, and did not budge. For more than a quarter
of an hour she sat there, immovable, putting on her gloves, and calmly
staring at those who were waiting like myself. Now, two young men who
were just finishing their dinner, having seen me in their turn, hastily
summoned the waiter, paid what they owed, and at once offered me their
seats, even insisting on standing while waiting for their change. And,
bear in mind, my fair niece, that I am no longer pretty, like you, but
old and white-haired.

It is we, you see, who should be taught politeness, and the task would be
such a difficult one that Hercules himself would not be equal to it. You
speak to me about Etretat and about the people who indulged in
"tittle-tattle" along the beach of that delightful watering-place. It is
a spot now lost to me, a thing of the past, but I found much amusement
therein days gone by.

There were only a few of us, people in good society, really good society,
and a few artists, and we all fraternized. We paid little attention to
gossip in those days.

As we had no monotonous Casino, where people only gather for show, where
they whisper, where they dance stupidly, where they succeed in thoroughly
boring one another, we sought some other way of passing our evenings
pleasantly. Now, just guess what came into the head of one of our
husbands? Nothing less than to go and dance each night in one of the
farm-houses in the neighborhood.

We started out in a group with a street-organ, generally played by Le
Poittevin, the painter, with a cotton nightcap on his head. Two men
carried lanterns. We followed in procession, laughing and chattering like
a pack of fools.

We woke up the farmer and his servant-maids and farm hands. We got them
to make onion soup (horror!), and we danced under the apple trees, to the
sound of the barrel-organ. The cocks waking up began to crow in the
darkness of the out-houses; the horses began prancing on the straw of
their stables. The cool air of the country caressed our cheeks with the
smell of grass and of new-mown hay.

How long ago it is! How long ago it is! It is thirty years since then!

I do not want you, my darling, to come for the opening of the hunting
season. Why spoil the pleasure of our friends by inflicting on them
fashionable toilettes on this day of vigorous exercise in the country?
This is the way, child, that men are spoiled. I embrace you. Your old
a