t."

"Bravo!" said Mrs. Morley, clapping her pretty hands. "That speech
reminds me of home. The French are very much like the Americans in their
style of oratory."

"So," said Louvier, "my old friend the Vicomte has come out as a writer,
a politician, a philosopher; I feel hurt that he kept this secret
from me despite our intimacy. I suppose you knew it from the first, M.
Rameau?"

"No, I was as much taken by surprise as the rest of the world. You have
long known M. de Mauleon?"

"Yes, I may say we began life together--that is, much at the same time."

"What is he like in appearance?" asked Mrs. Morley. "The ladies thought
him very handsome when he was young," replied Louvier. "He is still a
fine-looking man, about my height."

"I should like to know him!" cried Mrs. Morley, "if only to tease that
husband of mine. He refuses me the dearest of woman's rights.--I can't
make him jealous."

"You may have the opportunity of knowing this ci-devant Lovelace very
soon," said Rameau, "for he has begged me to present him to Mademoiselle
Cicogna, and I will ask her permission to do so, on Thursday evening
when she receives."

Isaura, who had hitherto attended very listlessly to the conversation,
bowed assent. "Any friend of yours will be welcome. But I own the
articles signed in the name of Pierre Firmin do not prepossess me in
favour of their author."

"Why so?" asked Louvier; "surely you are not an Imperialist?"

"Nay, I do not pretend to be a politician at all, but there is something
in the writing of Pierre Firmin that pains and chills me."

"Yet the secret of its popularity," said Savarin, "is that it says what
every one says--only better."

"I see now that it is exactly that which displeases me; it is the Paris
talk condensed into epigram: the graver it is the less it elevates--the
lighter it is, the more it saddens."

"That is meant to hit me," said Savarin, with his sunny laugh--"me whom
you call cynical."

"No, dear M. Savarin; for above all your cynicism is genuine gaiety,
and below it solid kindness. You have that which I do not find in M.
de Mauleon's writing, nor often in the talk of the salon--you have
youthfulness."

"Youthfulness at sixty--flatterer!"

"Genius does not count its years by the almanac," said Mrs. Morley. "I
know what Isaura means--she is quite right; there is a breath of winter
in M. de Mauleon's style, and an odour of fallen leaves. Not that his
diction wants vigour; on the con