he got up from his seat, and, throwing back his waistcoat,
showed her that he wore a red shirt.

Eveline laughed unrestrainedly. "A red shirt! So that means that you
have enlisted as a Garibaldian?"

"I should have done so long ago only for my mother."

"And what would you do if your hand was shot off?"

"Then I should become a pensioner to some fine lady, who would, I
know, support me."

Eveline burst into tears. His words had touched a chord in her tender
heart. Arpad, however, could not imagine what he had said to grieve
her; he tried to console her, and asked how he had offended her. Still
sobbing, she said:

"My poor little brother is dead. There by my table I keep his
crutches."

"I am sorry for you; with all my heart I sympathize in your grief. He
and I were good friends; we had plenty of fun together."

"Yes; you liked him. The world is quite dead to me; everything is
changed. I listen for the sound of his crutches scratching along the
floor up the stairs. Ah, my little brother! I have no one now. I want
some one to take care of. I should like to nurse some one--an artist
who had lost his eyesight; a musician whose right hand had been shot
off; or a political hero, who, being pursued, concealed himself in my
room, and to whom I should be benefactress, protectress, bread-winner,
everything."

"Why don't you go to Garibaldi?"

She was laughing now; her moods were as variable as an April day.

"You have heard me sing in public. What do you say of me?"

"I say you would be a great artist if you could sing for the devils as
well as you do for the angels."

"I don't understand. What do you mean by the devils?"

"You surely have heard from the pulpit that the theatre is the devil's
synagogue?"

"You rude man! Don't you know that I belong to the theatre?"

"I beg pardon a thousand times. I believed that in the daytime you
were an abbess and at night you were an actress; that would be a fair
bargain."

"You silly boy! Why do you think I am an abbess?"

"Because you are dressed as such."

"This is only a penitential dress. You godless creature, you are
making fun of religion!"

"No, madame. I agree that it is a great mortification to wear gray
silk, a great penance to play the coquette with downcast eyes, a real
fast to eat crawfish at twenty francs the dish. I am also told that
the reason the fashionable ladies of Paris have taken to wearing high
dresses is that they discipline the flesh so sev