in California.
This last was no fiction, the cut of Mr. Sparks's beard and his
unpolished manners left no doubt on the subject; and she wound up by
saying that Madame d'Avrigny, whom no one could accuse of ill-nature, had
been grieved at meeting this unhappy girl in very improper company, among
which she seemed quite in her element, like a fish in water. It was said
also that she was thinking of studying for the stage with La Rochette--M.
de Talbrun had heard it talked about in the foyer of the Opera by an old
Prince from some foreign country--she could not remember his name, but he
was praising Madame Strahlberg without any reserve as the most delightful
of Parisiennes. Thereupon Talbrun had naturally forbidden his wife to
have anything to do with Jacqueline, or even to write to her. Fat Oscar,
though he was not all that he ought to be himself, had some very strict
notions of propriety. No one was more particular about family relations,
and really in this case no one could blame him; but Giselle had been very
unhappy, and to the very last had tried to stand up for her unhappy
friend. Having told him all this, she added, she would say no more on the
subject.

Giselle was a model woman in everything, in tact, in goodness, in good
sense, and she was very attentive to the poor old mother of Fred, who but
for her must have died long ago of loneliness and sorrow. Thereupon
ensued the poor lady's usual lamentations over the long, long absence of
her beloved son; as usual, she told him she did not think she should live
to see him back again; she gave him a full account of her maladies,
caused, or at least aggravated, by her mortal, constant, incurable
sorrow; and she told how Giselle had been nursing her with all the
patience and devotion of a Sister of Charity. Through all Madame d'Argy's
letters at this period the angelic figure of Giselle was contrasted with
the very different one of that young and incorrigible little devil of a
Jacqueline.

Fred at first believed his mother's stories were all exaggeration, but
the facts were there, corroborated by the continued silence of the person
concerned. He knew his mother to be too good wilfully to blacken the
character of one whom for years she had hoped would be her
daughter-in-law, the only child of her best friend, the early love of her
son. But by degrees he fancied that the love so long living at the bottom
of his heart was slowly dying, that it had been extinguished, that
n