whom do you speak?"

Francine, obeying an impulse, had thrown on a peignoir of white
cashmere, and appeared, white and trembling, at the door. Irene ran to
her side.

"Courage! sister," she cried, "courage!"

Then Irene herself gave way, and burst into passionate weeping. Francine
took her brother's letter and read it slowly, but when she came to the
words "little Jacques" and "Cinette," her eyes closed, and she would
have fallen had not Bobichel caught her.

"You must not cry like that!" he said. "You must not weep. We will save
Fanfar! Please, Mademoiselle Irene, read the letter Iron Jaws sends you.
He has an idea, and he knows what he is about. He will save Fanfar!"

Bobichel's confidence was so great, his honest affection was so
apparent, that the two girls exchanged a hopeful glance.

"Read!" said Francine.

Iron Jaws' letter was not faultless in respect to orthography. Its
errors we will not repeat:

"Fanfar must be saved! I know your attachment for him. You have great
influence with people in power. Try to see him, and give him something
that Bobichel will hand you. I rely on your doing this."

"What am I to say to Iron Jaws?" asked Bobichel.

"Tell him that I will do all he asks. But you have another note for me?"

"No, not a note." And Bobichel, with infinite care, took from the flap
of his coat a pin, an ordinary pin though of large size, not large
enough, however, to excite the smallest suspicion.

"Do you see that?" cried the clown, with much of his former gayety. "Do
you see that, ladies and gentlemen? This pin does not look like much,
does it, now? But you can screw off the head, and then you will find a
tiny note--"

"It is most ingenious," said Irene, with a smile "and it shall be
delivered as you desire."

"Ah! you are a brave creature, and if some day you want some one to
amuse your children--that is, when you have any, you know--send for me,
and I will be frogs for them all day long!"

And with this somewhat startling promise, Bobichel departed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SUPREME EFFORT.

Monsieur de Fongereues was alone in his cabinet. Magdalena had left him
only a few moments before. A violent scene had taken place between the
husband and wife.

The ruin that threatened the Fongereues mansion had been temporarily
staved off by the marriage that had been arranged between Irene and the
Vicomte, but as soon as the world knew that the marriage was broken off,
the tongues