much more
so than in former times. We assimilate too much from other people, and
this being the case, we lose even the individuality of our features; we
present the portrait of a collective set of people rather than of
ourselves."

We rose to take our leave; he accompanied us to the door; then by the
light of the lamp he carried in his hand we saw, for a second at least,
this marvelous historian of dreams, the great somnambulist of the past
and brilliant talker of the present.

THE SUICIDE

From 'Sister Philomene'

The next morning the whole hospital knew that Barnier, having scratched
his hand on the previous day while dissecting a body in a state of
purulent infection, was dying in terrible agonies.

When at four o'clock Malivoire, quitting for a few moments the bedside
of his friend, came to replace him in the service, the Sister went up to
him. She followed from bed to bed, dogging his steps, without however
accosting him, without speaking, watching him intently with her eyes
fixed on his. As he was leaving the ward:--

"Well?" she asked, in the brief tone with which women stop the doctor on
his last visit at the threshold of the room.

"No hope," said Malivoire, with a gesture of despair; "there is nothing
to be done. It began at his right ankle, went up the leg and thigh, and
has attacked all the articulations. Such agonies, poor fellow! It will
be a mercy when it's over."

"Will he be dead before night?" asked the Sister calmly.

"Oh no! He will live through the night. It is the same case as that of
Raguideau three years ago; and Raguideau lasted forty-eight hours."

That evening, at ten o'clock, Sister Philomene might be seen entering
the church of Notre Dame des Victoires.

The lamps were being lowered, the lighted tapers were being put out one
by one with a long-handled extinguisher. The priest had just left the
vestry.

The Sister inquired where he lived, and was told that his house was a
couple of steps from the church, in the Rue de la Banque.

The priest was just going into the house when she entered behind,
pushing open the door he was closing.

"Come in, Sister," he said, unfurling his wet umbrella and placing it on
the tiled floor in the ante-room. And he turned toward her. She was on
her knees. "What are you doing, Sister?" he said, astonished at her
attitude. "Get up, my child. This is not a fit place. Come, get up!"

"You will save him, will you not?" and Philomene caught hol