s on the microscope and the
zoophytes, as well as several scientific story-books. One of these I
opened at the following lines: "The cuttle-fish _Sepia Officinalis_ is
a cephalopodic mollusc whose body includes a spongy organ containing a
chylaqueous fluid saturated with carbonate of lime." My pretty little
neighbour finds this story very interesting. I beg of her, unless she
wishes me to die of mortification, never to read the story of Honey-Bee.

II

In which we learn what the white rose meant to the Countess
of Blanchelande

Having placed on her golden hair a little black hood embroidered with
pearls and bound about her waist a widow's girdle, the Countess of
Blanchelande entered the chapel where it was her daily custom to pray
for the soul of her husband who had been killed in single-handed combat
with a giant from Ireland.

That day she saw a white rose lying on the cushion of her _prie-Dieu_;
at sight of this she turned pale; her eyes grew dim; she bowed her head
and wrung her hand. For she knew that when a Countess of Blanchelande is
about to die she always finds a white rose on her _prie-Dieu_.

Warned by this that her time had come to leave a world in which in
so short a time she had been wife, mother and widow, she entered the
chamber where her son George slept in the care of the nurses. He was
three years old. His long eyelashes threw a lovely shadow on his cheeks,
and his mouth looked like a flower. At sight of him, so helpless and so
beautiful, she began to weep.

"My little child," she cried in anguish, "my dear little child, you will
never have known me and my image will fade for ever from your dear eyes.
And yet, to be truly your mother, I nourished you with my own milk, and
for love of you I refused the hand of the noblest cavaliers."

So speaking she kissed a medallion in which was her own portrait and a
lock of her hair, and this she hung about the neck of her son. A mothers
tear fell on the little one's cheek as he stirred in his cradle and
rubbed his eyes with his little hands. But the Countess turned her head
away and fled out of the room. How could eyes about to be extinguished
for ever bear the light of two dear eyes in which the soul was only
beginning to dawn?

She ordered a steed to be saddled and followed by her squire, Francoeur,
she rode to the castle of Clarides.

The Duchess of Clarides embraced the Countess of Blanchelande.

"Loveliest! what good fortune bring