nce of mijauree and hands. But this made her
very uneasy, and she had recourse to her grand coup. This misdirected
genius had for a twelvemonth past practised yawning, and could do it
now at any moment so naturally as to set all creation gaping, could all
creation have seen her. By this means she got in all her charms. For
first she showed her teeth, then, out of good breeding, you know, closed
her mouth with three taper fingers. So the moment Gerard's story got too
interesting and absorbing, she turned to and made yawns, and "croix sur
la bouche."

This was all very fine: but Gerard was an artist, and artists are
chilled by gaping auditors. He bore up against the yawns a long time;
but finding they came from a bottomless reservoir, lost both heart and
temper, and suddenly rising in mid narrative, said, "But I weary our
hostess, and I am tired myself: so good night!" whipped a candle off the
dresser, whispered Denys, "I cannot stand her," and marched to bed in a
moment.

The mijauree coloured and bit her lips. She had not intended her byplay
for Gerard's eye: and she saw in a moment she had been rude, and silly,
and publicly rebuked. She sat with cheek on fire, and a little natural
water in her eyes, and looked ten times comelier and more womanly
and interesting than she had done all day. The desertion of the best
narrator broke up the party, and the unassuming Denys approached the
meditative mijauree, and invited her in the most flattering terms to
gamble with him. She started from her reverie, looked him down into the
earth's centre with chilling dignity, and consented, for she remembered
all in a moment what a show of hands gambling admitted.

The soldier and the mijauree rattled the dice. In which sport she was so
taken up with her hands, that she forgot to cheat, and Denys won an "ecu
au soleil" of her. She fumbled slowly with her purse, partly because her
sex do not burn to pay debts of honour, partly to admire the play of
her little knuckles peeping between their soft white cushions. Denys
proposed a compromise.

"Three silver franks I win of you, fair hostess. Give me now three
kisses of this white hand, and we'll e'en cry quits."

"You are malapert," said the lady, with a toss of her head; "besides,
they are so dirty. See! they are like ink!" and to convince him she put
them out to him and turned them up and down. They were no dirtier than
cream fresh from the cob and she knew it: she was eternally washing