elf met
them in Italy."

"But their name?" I said.

"De Lanty," he replied, without embarrassment or hesitation.

And, in fact, my dear Madame de Camps, a family of that name did live
in Paris about that time, and you probably remember, as I do, that many
strange stories were told about them. As Monsieur Dorlange answered my
question he turned back towards his veiled statue.

"The sister whom you have not, madame," he said to me abruptly, "I shall
permit myself to give you, and I venture to hope that you will see a
certain family likeness in her."

So saying, he removed the cloth that concealed his work, and there _I_
stood, under the form of a saint, with a halo round my head. Could I be
angry at the liberty thus taken?

My husband and Nais gave a cry of admiration at the wonderful likeness
they had before their eyes. As for Monsieur Dorlange, he at once
explained the cause of his scenic effect.

"This statue," he said, "is a Saint-Ursula, ordered by a convent in the
provinces. Under circumstances which it would take too long to relate,
the type of this saint, the person whom I mentioned just now, was firmly
fixed in my memory. I should vainly have attempted to create by my
imagination another type for that saint, it could not have been so
completely the expression of my thought. I therefore began to model this
figure which you see from memory, then one day, madame, at Saint-Thomas
d'Aquin, I saw you, and I had the superstition to believe that you were
sent to me by Providence. After that, I worked from you only, and as
I did not feel at liberty to ask you to come to my studio, the best I
could do was to study you when we met, and I multiplied my chances of
doing so. I carefully avoided knowing your name and social position, for
I feared to bring you down from the ideal and materialize you."

"Oh! I have often seen you following us," said Nais, with her clever
little air.

How little we know children, and their turn for observation! As for my
husband, it seemed to me that he ought to have pricked up his ears at
this tale of the daring manner in which his wife had been used as
a model. Monsieur de l'Estorade is certainly no fool; in all social
matters he has the highest sense of conventional propriety, and as for
jealousy, I think if I gave him the slightest occasion he would show
himself ridiculously jealous. But now, the sight of his "beautiful
Renee," as he calls me, done into white marble in the form of a