appens to be quite near the Bois de Boulogne, and if once the
fashionable world got into the way of passing through it--That exalted
society which was so much sought by her mother, is Mlle. Henriette's
fixed idea, and she is astonished that the thought of receiving "le
high-life" in his little apartment on the fifth floor makes their
neighbour laugh. The other week, however, a carriage with livery had
called on him. Only just now, too, he had a very "swell" visit.

"Oh, quite a great lady!" interrupts Bonne Maman. "We were at the window
on the lookout for father. We saw her alight from her carriage and look
at the show-frame; we made sure that her visit was for you."

"It was for me," said Andre, a little embarrassed.

"For a moment we were afraid that she was going to pass on like so many
others, on account of your five flights of stairs. So all four of us
tried to attract her without her knowing it, by the magnetism of our
four staring pairs of eyes. We drew her gently by the feathers of her
hat and the laces of her cape. 'Come up then, madame, come up,' and
finally she entered. There is so much magnetism in eyes that are kindly
disposed."

Magnetism she certainly had, the dear creature, not only in her glances,
indeterminate of colour, veiled or gay like the sky of her Paris, but in
her voice, in the draping of her dress, in everything about her, even to
the long curl, falling over the neck erect and delicate as a statue's.

Tea having been served, while the gentlemen finished their cups and
talked--old Joyeuse was always very long over everything he did, by
reason of his sudden expeditions to the moon--the girls brought out
their work, the table became covered with wicker baskets, embroideries,
pretty wools that rejuvenated with their bright tints the faded flowers
of the old carpet, and the group of the other evening gathered once
more within the bright circle defined by the lamp-shade, to the great
satisfaction of Paul de Gery. It was the first evening of the kind that
he had spent in Paris; it recalled to him others of a like sort very far
away, lulled by the same innocent laughter, the peaceful sound produced
by scissors as they are put down on the table, by a needle as it pierces
through linen, or the rustle of a page turned over, and dear faces,
disappeared for ever, gathered also around the family lamp, alas! so
abruptly extinguished.

Having been admitted to this charming intimacy, he remained in it, to