he had ever been before, he wrote her long, mad,
ardent letters in which his passion overflowed like a stream of lava.

He altered his handwriting, as he remembered her restless brain, and
her many whims. He sent her the flowers which he knew she liked best,
and told her that she was his life, that he was dying of waiting for
her, of longing for her, for her his idol.

At last, very much puzzled and surprised, guessing--who knows?--from
the instinctive beating of her heart, and her general emotion, that it
must be he this time, he whose soul she had tortured with such cold
cruelty, and knowing that she could make amends for the past and bring
back their former love, she replied to him, and granted him the meeting
that he asked for. She fell into his arms, and they both sobbed with
joy and ecstasy. Their kisses were those which lips give only when they
have lost each other and found each other again at last, when they meet
and exhaust themselves in each other's looks, thirsting for tenderness,
love, and enjoyment.

* * * * *

Last week Count de Baudemont carried off Marie Anne quietly and coolly,
just like one resumes possession of one's house on returning from a
journey, and drives out the intruders. And when Maitre Garrulier was
told of this unheard of scandal, he rubbed his hands--the long,
delicate hands of a sensual prelate--and exclaimed:

"That is absolutely logical, and I should like to be in their place."

[1] Title given to advocates in France.

THE MAD WOMAN

"I can tell you a terrible story about the Franco-Prussian war,"
Monsieur d'Endolin said to some friends assembled in the smoking-room
of Baron de Ravot's chateau. "You know my house in the Faubourg de
Cormeil, I was living there when the Prussians came, and I had for a
neighbor a kind of mad woman, who had lost her senses in consequence of
a series of misfortunes. At the age of seven and twenty she had lost
her father, her husband, and her newly born child, all in the space of
a month.

"When death has once entered into a house, it almost invariably returns
immediately, as if it knew the way, and the young woman, overwhelmed
with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. Then a
species of calm lassitude succeeded that violent crisis, and she
remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes.
Every time they tried to make her get up, she screamed as if they were
about to kill he