s. "What about Lucien?"

"If you wish to save him, madame, you must have courage enough to lose
no time in dressing. But, indeed, Madame la Duchesse, you could not look
more charming than you do at this moment. You are sweet enough to charm
anybody, take an old woman's word for it! In short, madame, do not wait
for your carriage, but get into my hackney coach. Come to Madame de
Serizy's if you hope to avert worse misfortunes than the death of that
cherub----"

"Go on, I will follow you," said the Duchess after a moment's
hesitation. "Between us we may give Leontine some courage..."

Notwithstanding the really demoniacal activity of this Dorine of
the hulks, the clock was striking two when she and the Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse went into the Comtesse de Serizy's house in the Rue de la
Chaussee-d'Antin. Once there, thanks to the Duchess, not an instant was
lost. The two women were at once shown up to the Countess, whom they
found reclining on a couch in a miniature chalet, surrounded by a garden
fragrant with the rarest flowers.

"That is well," said Asie, looking about her. "No one can overhear us."

"Oh! my dear, I am half dead! Tell me, Diane, what have you done?" cried
the Duchess, starting up like a fawn, and, seizing the Duchess by the
shoulders, she melted into tears.

"Come, come, Leontine; there are occasions when women like us must not
cry, but act," said the Duchess, forcing the Countess to sit down on the
sofa by her side.

Asie studied the Countess' face with the scrutiny peculiar to those old
hands, which pierces to the soul of a woman as certainly as a surgeon's
instrument probes a wound!--the sorrow that engraves ineradicable lines
on the heart and on the features. She was dressed without the least
touch of vanity. She was now forty-five, and her printed muslin wrapper,
tumbled and untidy, showed her bosom without any art or even stays! Her
eyes were set in dark circles, and her mottled cheeks showed the traces
of bitter tears. She wore no sash round her waist; the embroidery on her
petticoat and shift was all crumpled. Her hair, knotted up under a lace
cap, had not been combed for four-and-twenty hours, and showed as a
thin, short plait and ragged little curls. Leontine had forgotten to put
on her false hair.

"You are in love for the first time in your life?" said Asie
sententiously.

Leontine then saw the woman and started with horror.

"Who is that, my dear Diane?" she asked of the Duchesse d