e engaged in diplomacy. Even supposing I marry--which I do
not think an absolute necessity, unless I can not get rid otherwise of an
inconvenient chaperon--and to do my stepmother justice, she knows well
enough that I will not submit to too much of her dictation!"

"Jacqueline, they say you see too much of the Odinskas."

"There! that's another fault you find in me. I go there because Madame
Strahlberg is so kind as to give me some singing-lessons. If you only
knew how much progress I am making, thanks to her. Music is a thousand
times more interesting, I can tell you, than all that you can do as
mistress of a household. You don't think so? Oh! I know Enguerrand's
first tooth, his first steps, his first gleams of intelligence, and all
that. Such things are not in my line, you know. Of course I think your
boy very funny, very cunning, very--anything you like to fancy him, but
forgive me if I am glad he does not belong to me. There, don't you see
now that marriage is not my vocation, so please give up speaking to me
about matrimony."

"As you will," said Giselle, sadly, "but you will give great pain to a
good man whose heart is wholly yours."

"I did not ask for his heart. Such gifts are exasperating. One does not
know what to do with them. Can't he--poor Fred--love me as I love him,
and leave me my liberty?"

"Your liberty!" exclaimed Giselle; "liberty to ruin your life, that's
what it will be."

"Really, one would suppose there was only one kind of existence in your
eyes--this life of your own, Giselle. To leave one cage to be shut up in
another--that is the fate of many birds, I know, but there are others who
like to use their wings to soar into the air. I like that expression.
Come, little mother, tell me right out, plainly, that your lot is the
only one in this world that ought to be envied by a woman."

Giselle answered with a strange smile:

"You seem astonished that I adore my baby; but since he came great things
seem to have been revealed to me. When I hold him to my breast I seem to
understand, as I never did before, duty and marriage, family ties and
sorrows, life itself, in short, its griefs and joys. You can not
understand that now, but you will some day. You, too, will gaze upon the
horizon as I do. I am ready to suffer; I am ready for self-sacrifice. I
know now whither my life leads me. I am led, as it were, by this little
being, who seemed to me at first only a doll, for whom I was embroidering
ca