ther, "where the deuce is my lantern. I have
forgotten all about the cellar. Jean, take your basket and let us go and
rummage behind the fagots."

The soup is smoking, and my mother, after having glanced smilingly round
the table, plunges her ladle into the tureen. Give me the family dinner
table at which those we love are seated, at which we may risk resting
our elbows at dessert, and at which at thirty we once more taste the
wine offered at our baptism.

CHAPTER XXIV. LETTERS OF A YOUNG MOTHER TO HER FRIEND.

The little caps are the ones I want, Marie. Be good enough to send me
the pattern of the braces, those of your own invention, you know. Thanks
for your coverlet, it is soft, flexible, warm, and charming, and Baby,
amid its white wool, looks like a rosebud hidden in the snow. I am
becoming poetical, am I not? But what would you have? My poor heart is
overflowing with joy. My son, do you understand that, dear, my own son?
When I heard the sharp cry of the little being whom my mother showed me
lying in her apron, it seemed to me that a burning thrill of love shot
through my veins. My old doctor's bald head was close to me, I caught
hold of it and kissed him thrice.

"Calm yourself, my dear child," said he.

"Doctor, be quiet, or I will kiss you again. Give me my baby, my love.
Are you quite sure it is a boy?"

And in the adjoining drawing-room, where the whole family were waiting,
I could hear amid the sound of kisses, the delightful words, "It is a
boy, a fine boy."

My poor husband, who for twelve hours had not left me, overcome with
fatigue and emotion, was crying and laughing in one corner of the room.

"Come, nurse, swaddle him, quick now. No pins, confound it all, strings,
I will have strings. What? Give me the child, you don't understand
anything about it."

And the good doctor in the twinkling of an eye had dressed my child.

"He looks a Colonel, your boy. Put him into the cradle with... now be
calm, my dear patient... with a hot-water bottle to his feet. Not too
much fire, especially in the Colonel's room. Now, no more noise, repose,
and every one out of the way."

And as through the opening of the door which was just ajar, Aunt Ursula
whispered, "Doctor, let me come in; just to press her hand, doctor."

"Confound it! every one must be off; silence and quiet are absolutely
necessary." They all left.

"Octave," continued the doctor, "come and kiss your wife now, and make
an end of it. G