ertignac is to be made Gentleman of the
Pope's Antechamber."

"Here is one, however, fortunately rescued," said Mademoiselle Mars,
producing the volume, which Jossard quickly snatched from her, and
began, in pompous tones, reciting the lines, beginning,--

"Sour de mon enfance, si je te quitte pour toujours."

"An abominable line," cried one, "and perfectly impossible to give
without a bassoon accompaniment for the last word."

"The epithet, too, is downright nonsense. Why sister of her infancy? Did
she cease to be so as she grew up?" said another.

"I wrote the lines after supping with Breslot," said the author. "One is
not accountable for words uttered in moments of debility and hunger."

"Be the lines what they may, let us hear Mademoiselle read them," said
Talma; "and I mistake greatly but, with all our studied accuracy,
we shall learn something from one whose nature is not bound by our
trammels."

To have adventured on such a task, before such an audience, was more
than Margot could dare to contemplate, and she grew faint and sick at
the bare thought. They were not, however, of that mould which listens to
excuses and refusals. The great familiarity which existed amongst them
excluded all deference to individual likings or dislikings, and if
servants of the public on the stage, off the boards they were the
slaves of each other. Margot, almost lifeless with terror, was therefore
obliged to comply. At first the words fell from her lips almost
inaudibly; by degrees her voice gained strength, and only a tremulous
accent betrayed the struggle within her. But at last, when she came to
the part where the nun, as if asking herself whether the world and its
fascinations had taken no hold upon her heart, confesses, with a burst
of spirit-wrung misery, that it was so, and that to leave that joyous
sunlight for the gloomy sepulchre of the cloister was worse than death
itself, her utterance grew full and strong, her dark eyes flashed, her
color heightened, her bosom heaved, and she gave the passage with such
a burst of thrilling eloquence that the last words were drowned in
thunders of applause, only hushed as they beheld her fall back fainting,
and perfectly overcome by her emotions.

"And you think you can take the veil, child?" asked Mademoiselle Mars,
when they were alone.

But Margot made no answer.

"You believe, Margot, that it will be possible for you to stifle within
you feelings such as these, and that t