f his nephew, and of the girl
the nephew loved in spite of her American millions--this story had the
rare good fortune of pleasing at once the broad public of indiscriminate
readers of fiction and the narrower circle of real lovers of literature.
Artificial the atmosphere of the tale might be, but it was with an
artifice at once delicate and delicious; and the tale itself won its way
into the hearts of the women of America as it had into the hearts of the
women of France.

There is even a legend--although how solid a foundation it may have in
fact I do not dare to discuss--there is a legend that the lady-superior
of a certain convent near Paris was so fascinated by _The Abbe
Constantin_, and so thoroughly convinced of the piety of its author,
that she ordered all his other works, receiving in due season the lively
volumes wherein are recorded the sayings and doings of Monsieur and
Madame Cardinal, and of the two lovely daughters of Monsieur and Madame
Cardinal. To note that these very amusing studies of certain aspects of
life in a modern capital originally appeared in that extraordinary
journal, _La Vie Parisienne_--now sadly degenerate--is enough to
indicate that they are not precisely what the good lady-superior
expected to receive. We may not say that _La Famille Cardinal_ is one of
the books every gentleman's library should be without; but to appreciate
its value requires a far different knowledge of the world and of its
wickedness than is needed to understand _The Abbe Constantin_.

Yet the picture of the good priest and the portraits of the little
Cardinals are the work of the same hand, plainly enough. In both of
these books, as in _Criquette_ (M. Halevy's only other novel), as in _A
Marriage for Love_, and the twoscore other short stories he has written
during the past thirty years, there are the same artistic qualities, the
same sharpness of vision, the same gentle irony, the same constructive
skill, and the same dramatic touch. It is to be remembered always that
the author of _L'Abbe Constantin_ is also the half-author of "Froufrou"
and of "Tricoche et Cacolet," as well as of the librettos of "La Belle
Helene" and of "La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein."

In the two novels, as in the twoscore short stories and sketches--the
_contes_ and the _nouvelles_ which are now spring-like idyls and now
wintry episodes, now sombre etchings and now gayly-colored pastels--in
all the works of the story-teller we see the fir