in which talent should live."

Being very much fatigued, she fell asleep upon the offered sofa,
half-pleased, half-frightened, but with two prominent convictions: one,
that she was beginning to return to life; the other, that she stood on
the edge of a precipice. In her dreams old Rochette appeared to her, her
face like that of an affable frog, her dress the dress of Pierrot, and
she croaked out, in a variety of tones: "The stage! Why not? Applauded
every night--it would be glorious!" Then she seemed in her dream to be
falling, falling down from a great height, as one falls from fairyland
into stern reality. She opened her eyes: it was noon. Madame Odinska was
waiting for her: she intended herself to take her to the convent, and
for that purpose had assumed the imposing air of a noble matron.

Alas! it was in vain! Jacqueline, was made to understand that such
an infraction of the rules could not be overlooked. To pass the night
without leave out of the convent, and not with her own family, was cause
for expulsion. Neither the prayers nor the anger of Madame Odinska
had any power to change the sentence. While the Mother Superior
calmly pronounced her decree, she was taking the measure of this stout
foreigner who appeared in behalf of Jacqueline, a woman overdressed, yet
at the same time shabby, who had a far from well-bred or aristocratic
air. "Out of consideration for Madame de Talbrun," she said, "the
convent consents to keep Mademoiselle de Nailles a few days longer--a
few weeks perhaps, until she can find some other place to go. That is
all we can do for her."

Jacqueline listened to this sentence as she might have watched a game of
dice when her fate hung on the result, but she showed no emotion. "Now,"
she thought, "my fate has been decided; respectable people will have
nothing more to do with me. I will go with the others, who, perhaps,
after all are not worse, and who most certainly are more amusing."

A fortnight after this, Madame de Nailles, having come back to Paris,
from some watering-place, was telling Marien that Jacqueline had started
for Bellagio with Mr. and Miss Sparks, the latter having taken a notion
that she wanted that kind of chaperon who is called a companion in
England and America.

"But they are of the same age," said Marien.

"That is just what Miss Sparks wants. She does not wish to be hampered
by an elderly chaperon, but to be accompanied, as she would have been by
her sister."

"Ja