cles, and while he was wiping the
glasses he gave a rapid and impatient glance at the works that adorned
the walls. None of them could charm the numismatist's heart. After he had
enjoyed the pleasure of proving how feeble in comparison were the charms
of a Titian or a Veronese, then only did M. Charnot walk step by step to
the first case and bend reverently over it.

Yet the collection of paintings was unworthy of such disdain. The
pictures were few, but all were signed with great names, most of them
Italian, a few Dutch, Flemish, or German. I began to work systematically
through them, pleased at the want of a catalogue and the small number of
inscriptions on the frames. To be your own guide doubles your pleasure;
you can get your impression of a picture entirely at first hand; you are
filled with admiration without any one having told you that you are bound
to go into ecstasies. You can work out for yourself from a picture, by
induction and comparison, its subject, its school, and its author, unless
it proclaims, in every stroke of the brush, "I am a Hobbema," "a
Perugino," or "a Giotto."

I was somewhat distracted, however, by the voice of the old numismatist,
as he peered into the cases, and constrained his daughter to share in the
exuberance of his learned enthusiasm.

"Jeanne, look at this; crowned head of Cleopatra, Mark Antony on the
reverse; in perfect condition, isn't it? See, an Italian 'as-Iguvium
Umbriae', which my friend Pousselot has sought these thirty years! Oh, my
dear, this is important: Annius Verus on the reverse of Commodus, both as
children, a rare example--yet not as rare as--Jeanne, you must engrave
this gold medal in your heart, it is priceless: head of Augustus with
laurel, Diana walking on the reverse. You ought to take an interest in
her. Diana the fair huntress.

"This collection is heavenly! Wait a minute; we shall soon come to the
Annia Faustina."

Jeanne made no objection, but smiled softly upon the Cleopatra, the
Umbrian 'as', and the fair huntress.

Little by little her father's enthusiasm expanded over the vast
collection of treasures. He took out his pocketbook and began to make
notes. Jeanne raised her eyes to the walls, took one glance, then a
second, and, not being called back to the medals, stepped softly up to
the picture at which I had begun.

She went quickly from one to another having evidently no more than a
child's untutored taste for pictures. As I, on the contrary,