aying some personal things
which did not quite please me, considering my mourning. They were not
in perfect taste. I remembered how in the beginning I had not liked
his hands. One's first instincts are generally right.

When he had gone I said to myself I should not care to see him any
more.

In Paris one finds a hundred things to do and to buy if one happens
suddenly to have become a rich widow, as is my case. My few days
stretched themselves into a week.

I had a letter from the Marquis de Rochermont. He was returning to
his tiny apartments in the Rue de Varennes the following day, after
a fortnight's absence, he told me. The dear old Marquis! I should be
glad to see him again. He must be a very old man now, almost eighty,
although he was several years grandmamma's junior.

He would lunch with me with pleasure, he said, and at one next day
arrived in my sitting-room. He looked just as he used to do at first,
but soon I noticed his gayety was gone. He seemed frail and older. He
had deeply grieved for grandmamma.

His conversation was much the same, however. We spoke English as
usual. I had grown, he said, into the most beautiful woman he had ever
seen in his life, and my air and my dignity were worthy of the _ancien
regime_. I had found, he hoped, that his _conseils_ had been of some
use to me in my brief married life.

"Yes, Marquis," I said, "I have often been grateful to you and
grandmamma."

"You are of a great _richesse_ now, _n'est-ce pas, mon enfant_?"

"Yes, of a _richesse_. And so I have given all the Gurrage money back
to one of their family--you may remember her--Amelia Hoad was her
name."

"Ah!" he said, and he kissed my hand. "That was worthy of you and
worthy of your race. It would have pleased our dear madam."

"I had become so rich, you see, from papa, I did not really want the
money, and I had a feeling that if I gave it all back I should have no
further ties with them. I could slip away into another atmosphere and
gradually forget this year of my life."

We had a delightful luncheon, in spite of my poor old guest's
infirmities; he had grown blinder and more tottering since last we
met. He eat very little and sipped his sparkling hock.

I had determined somehow to try and give him some of my great wealth;
but how even to broach the subject I did not know. At last, driven
into a corner with nervousness, I blurted out my wishes.

"Oh, I want you to benefit too, dear friend!" I said. "You