crying, "Victoire! Victoire!" in fretful tones.

"His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir," said I, dropping a slight
curtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman.

To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in his
elbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow,
saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French,
which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of the
prior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back and
wandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectionery
again.

I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed my
great-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, a
graceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by my
great-grandmother out of deference to her husband's prejudices. In the
long years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not only
tolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur's untiring energy, but (though
he wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, find any occupation by which to add to
their income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess,
doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had to
devise some method to secure herself from his observation when she
washed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dresses
from commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc's dinner, or
mended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette's old fable came into use;
first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my
great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a
practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it
satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and
impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to
realize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with his
humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on
what business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance of
the Duchess that should have been!

To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband.

"He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy and
girl together," said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. And
indeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man's
politeness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave up
the habit of gath