te aimlessly I passed the door. A chit of a child crouched upon the
floor, and leaned forward on the benches, weeping as though each sob
were like to burst her little heart. I grant it was no affair of mine,
yet my tears were ever wont to start, and eyes play traitor to mine arm
at sight of woman's trouble. Without thinking one whit, I stepped in
beside her, and laying my hand gently upon the lassie's shoulder,
implored that she weep no more.

Up she sprang to face me, flushed and indignant. Verily was I abashed.
Yet there was that of sympathy and sincerity in my voice and mien--or
so she told me after--which turned her wrath aside.

"You, Monsieur; I thought it was old Monsieur Viard, he pursues me so."

It was the same little maid I had seen in the hall, and that was why I
trembled. She wept now for the scolding she had got. I caught my
breath to inquire why she wept.

"Oh, Madame, Madame--it is the humor of Madame to humiliate me of late;
she reminds me ever of my dependent position. And Monsieur," the child
straightened up proudly till she was quite a woman. "Monsieur, I come
of a race as old as her own--and as honored." "Charles is poor--the
Chevalier de la Mora, you know. But now he goes to the colonies, and
will take me with him."

It was a silly enough thing to do, but about here I stalked most
unceremoniously off, leaving her to her sorrow and her tears. Since
that day I have often smiled to think how foolishly do the wisest men
deport themselves when they first begin to love. Their little starts
of passion, their petty angers and their sweet repentances--all were
unexplored by me, for Love to me was yet an unread book.

At the door of the house M. Leroux hailed me graciously:

"Well met, my dear Captain; we go to the park, and would have you bear
us company. Where is M. de Greville?"

I explained as best I might his absence, and followed them in lieu of
better employment, forgetting for the time the threatened fete. Before
I could extricate myself, these new friends had led me into a brilliant
circle, and duly presented me to Madame, who sat on a sort of raised
platform in the center.

She showed no traces of her recent anger and spite, vented upon that
patient girl who now claimed all my thought. Her ladies, some
languishing literary notables of the day, and officers, stood about
discussing the news, and talked of naught but some fetching style or
popular play, through all of which I