ead weighed down by the cares and
disappointments of sixty years! For a blonde head this weight is very
heavy!

What! in this grand world, not one noble being, not one elevated soul
possessed of high aspirations and a holy respect for love!

For a young woman to own millions and be compelled to hoard them because
she has no one to bestow them upon! To be rich, young, free, generous,
and forced to live alone because no worthy partner can be found!...

Valentine, is not this a sad case?

Now my anger is gone--I am only sad, but I am mortally sad.... I know
not what to do.... Would I could fly to your arms! Ah! mother! my
mother! why am I left to struggle all alone in this unfeeling world!

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN.

XIII.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT,
Saint Dominique Street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, June 8th 18--.

She is here! Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!

The same day that you found Irene, I recovered Louise!

In making my tenth pilgrimage from Richeport to Pont de l'Arche, I
caught a glimpse from afar of Madame Taverneau's plump face encased in a
superb bonnet embellished with flaming ribbons! The drifting sea-weed
and floating fruit which were the certain indication to Christopher
Columbus of the presence of his long-dreamed-of land, did not make his
heart bound with greater delight than mine at the sight of Madame
Taverneau's bonnet! For that bonnet was the sign of Louise's return.

Oh! how charming thou didst appear to me then, frightful tulle cabbage,
with thy flaunting strings like unto an elephant's ears, and thy
enormous bows resembling those pompons with which horses' heads are
decorated! How much dearer to me wert thou than the diadem of an
empress, a vestal's fillet, the ropes of pearls twined among the jetty
locks of Venice's loveliest patricians, or the richest head-dress of
antique or modern art!

Ah, but Madame Taverneau was handsome! Her complexion, red as a beet,
seemed to me fresh as a new-blown rose,--so the poets always say,--I
could have embraced her resolutely, so happy was I.

The thought that Madame Taverneau might have returned alone flashed
through my mind ere I reached the threshold, and I felt myself grow
pale, but a glance through the half-open door drove away my terror.
There, bending over her table, was Louise, rolling grains of rice in red
sealing-wax in order to fill the interstices between the seals that she
had gotten from me, and among which figur