this morning, and I count on your gallantry, which is
well known to me, to save me from having too long to wait for you.
--Your faithful servant,

"ADELINE HULOT."

"Louise," said she to her daughter's maid, who waited on her, "take
this note down to the porter and desire him to carry it at once to this
address and wait for an answer."

The Baron, who was reading the news, held out a Republican paper to his
wife, pointing to an article, and saying:

"Is there time?"

This was the paragraph, one of the terrible "notes" with which the
papers spice their political bread and butter:--

"A correspondent in Algiers writes that such abuses have been
discovered in the commissariate transactions of the province of
Oran, that the Law is making inquiries. The peculation is
self-evident, and the guilty persons are known. If severe measures
are not taken, we shall continue to lose more men through the
extortion that limits their rations than by Arab steel or the
fierce heat of the climate. We await further information before
enlarging on this deplorable business. We need no longer wonder at
the terror caused by the establishment of the Press in Africa, as
was contemplated by the Charter of 1830."

"I will dress and go to the Minister," said the Baron, as they rose from
table. "Time is precious; a man's life hangs on every minute."

"Oh, mamma, there is no hope for me!" cried Hortense. And unable to
check her tears, she handed to her mother a number of the _Revue des
Beaux Arts_.

Madame Hulot's eye fell on a print of the group of "Delilah" by
Count Steinbock, under which were the words, "The property of Madame
Marneffe."

The very first lines of the article, signed V., showed the talent and
friendliness of Claude Vignon.

"Poor child!" said the Baroness.

Alarmed by her mother's tone of indifference, Hortense looked up, saw
the expression of a sorrow before which her own paled, and rose to kiss
her mother, saying:

"What is the matter, mamma? What is happening? Can we be more wretched
than we are already?"

"My child, it seems to me that in what I am going through to-day my past
dreadful sorrows are as nothing. When shall I have ceased to suffer?"

"In heaven, mother," said Hortense solemnly.

"Come, my angel, help me to dress.--No, no; I will not have you help me
in this! Send me Louise."

Adeline, in her room, went to study herself in the glass. She looked at
herself closely and