a
little cloth laid on a little table in Josephine's room, and the remains
of the pate she had liked. Rose burst out laughing. "Look at that dear
duck of a goose, Jacintha! Our mother's flattery sank deep: she thinks
we can eat her pates at all hours of the day and night. Shall I send it
away?"

"No," said Josephine, "that would hurt her culinary pride, and perhaps
her affection: only cover it up, dear, for just now I am not in the
humor: it rather turns me."

It was covered up. The sisters retired to rest. In the morning Rose
lifted the cover and found the plate cleared, polished. She was
astounded.

The large tapestried chamber, once occupied by Camille Dujardin, was
now turned into a sitting-room, and it was a favorite on account of the
beautiful view from the windows.

One day Josephine sat there alone with some work in her hand; but the
needle often stopped, and the fair head drooped. She heaved a deep sigh.
To her surprise it was echoed by a sigh that, like her own, seemed to
come from a heart full of sighs.

She turned hastily round and saw Jacintha.

Now Josephine had all a woman's eye for reading faces, and she was
instantly struck by a certain gravity in Jacintha's gaze, and a flutter
which the young woman was suppressing with tolerable but not complete
success.

Disguising the uneasiness this discovery gave her, she looked her
visitor full in the face, and said mildly, but a little coldly, "Well,
Jacintha?"

Jacintha lowered her eyes and muttered slowly,--

"The doctor--comes--to-day," then raised her eyes all in a moment to
take Josephine off her guard; but the calm face was impenetrable.
So then Jacintha added, "to our misfortune," throwing in still more
meaning.

"To our misfortune? A dear old friend--like him?"

Jacintha explained. "That old man makes me shake. You are never safe
with him. So long as his head is in the clouds, you might take his shoes
off, and on he'd walk and never know it; but every now and then he comes
out of the clouds all in one moment, without a word of warning, and when
he does his eye is on everything, like a bird's. Then he is so old: he
has seen a heap. Take my word for it, the old are more knowing than the
young, let them be as sharp as you like: the old have seen everything.
WE have only heard talk of the most part, with here and there a glimpse.
To know life to the bottom you must live it out, from the soup to the
dessert; and that is what the doctor has done