be going forth in disguise.
To walk the streets thus masked she thought would be amusing, so amusing
that the moment she set foot on the street pavement she felt that the joy
of living was yet strong in her. With a roll of music in her hand, she
walked on rather hesitatingly, a little afraid, like a bird just escaped
from the cage where it was born; her heart beat, but it was with
pleasure; she fancied every one was looking at her, and in fact one old
gentleman, not deceived by the cloak, did follow her till she got into an
omnibus for the first time in her life--a new experience and a new
pleasure. Once seated, and a little out of breath, she remembered Madame
Saville's letter, which she had slipped into her pocket. It was sealed
and had a stamp on it; it was too highly scented to be in good taste, and
it was addressed to a lieutenant of chasseurs with an aristocratic name,
in a garrison at Fontainebleau.

Then Jacqueline began vaguely to comprehend that Madame Saville's husband
might have had serious reasons for commending his wife to the
surveillance of the nuns, and that there might have been some excuse for
their endeavoring to hinder all intimacy between herself and the little
blonde.

This office of messenger, thrust upon her without asking permission, was
not agreeable to Jacqueline, and she resolved as she dropped the missive,
which, even on the outside, looked compromising, into the nearest
post-box, to be more reserved in future. For which reason she responded
coldly to a sign Madame Saville made her when, in the evening, she
returned from giving her lessons.

Those lessons--those excursions which took her abroad in all weathers,
though with praiseworthy and serious motives, into the fashionable parts
of Paris, from which she had exiled herself by her own will--were greatly
enjoyed by Jacqueline. Everything amused her, being seen from a point of
view in which she had never before contemplated it. She seemed to be at a
play, all personal interests forgotten for the moment, looking at the
world of which she was no longer a part with a lively, critical
curiosity, without regrets but without cynicism. The world did not seem
to her bad--only man's higher instincts had little part in it. Such, at
least, was what she thought, so long as people praised her for her
courage, so long as the houses in which another Jacqueline de Nailles had
been once so brilliant, received her with affection as before, though she
had