gs and left his little work-room on the
first floor, his face invariably wore the absorbed look of the man who
has his life on one side, his anxieties on another. What a delight it
was to him, therefore, to find his home always tranquil, his wife always
in good humor, becomingly dressed and smiling.

Without undertaking to explain the change to himself, he recognized
that for some time past the "little one" had not been as before in her
treatment of him. She allowed him to resume his old habits: the pipe at
dessert, the little nap after dinner, the appointments at the brewery
with Chebe and Delobelle. Their apartments also were transformed,
embellished.

A grand piano by a famous maker made its appearance in the salon in
place of the old one, and Madame Dobson, the singing-teacher, came no
longer twice a week, but every day, music-roll in hand.

Of a curious type was that young woman of American extraction, with hair
of an acid blond, like lemon-pulp, over a bold forehead and metallic
blue eyes. As her husband would not allow her to go on the stage, she
gave lessons, and sang in some bourgeois salons. As a result of living
in the artificial world of compositions for voice and piano, she had
contracted a species of sentimental frenzy.

She was romance itself. In her mouth the words "love" and "passion"
seemed to have eighty syllables, she uttered them with so much
expression. Oh, expression! That was what Mistress Dobson placed before
everything, and what she tried, and tried in vain, to impart to her
pupil.

'Ay Chiquita,' upon which Paris fed for several seasons, was then at the
height of its popularity. Sidonie studied it conscientiously, and all
the morning she could be heard singing:

"On dit que tu te maries,
Tu sais que j'en puis mourir."

[They say that thou'rt to marry
Thou know'st that I may die.]

"Mouri-i-i-i-i-r!" the expressive Madame Dobson would interpose, while
her hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys; and die she would,
raising her light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her
head. Sidonie never could accomplish it. Her mischievous eyes, her
lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harp
sentimentalities. The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed with
unexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid,
to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but
she dared n