be seen with you. You told me carefully
to avoid any scandal, and I am avoiding it, for, I am afraid--I am
afraid--"

She waited till the train had quite stopped, and as her friends ran up
to open the carriage door, she said:

"I am afraid"--hesitating--"that there is another reason--je suis
enceinte."

The princess stretched out her arms to embrace her,--and the baroness
said, painting to the baron, who was dumb with astonishment, and was
trying to get at the truth:

"You do not recognize Raymond? He has certainly changed a good deal,
and he agreed to come with me so that I might not travel alone. We take
little trips like this occasionally, like good friends who cannot
live together. We are going to separate here; he has had enough of me
already."

She put out her hand, which he took mechanically, and then she jumped
out on to the platform among her friends, who were waiting for her.

The baron hastily shut the carriage door, for he was too much disturbed
to say a word or come to any determination. He heard his wife's voice
and their merry laughter as they went away.

He never saw her again, nor did he ever discover whether she had told
him a lie or was speaking the truth.

THE BLIND MAN

How is it that the sunlight gives us such joy? Why does this radiance
when it falls on the earth fill us with the joy of living? The whole sky
is blue, the fields are green, the houses all white, and our enchanted
eyes drink in those bright colors which bring delight to our souls. And
then there springs up in our hearts a desire to dance, to run, to sing,
a happy lightness of thought, a sort of enlarged tenderness; we feel a
longing to embrace the sun.

The blind, as they sit in the doorways, impassive in their eternal
darkness, remain as calm as ever in the midst of this fresh gaiety, and,
not understanding what is taking place around them, they continually
check their dogs as they attempt to play.

When, at the close of the day, they are returning home on the arm of a
young brother or a little sister, if the child says: "It was a very
fine day!" the other answers: "I could notice that it was fine. Loulou
wouldn't keep quiet."

I knew one of these men whose life was one of the most cruel martyrdoms
that could possibly be conceived.

He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. As long as his father and
mother lived, he was more or less taken care of; he suffered little save
from his horrible infirmity; but