to
draw the cork of a new bottle, after all.

Mrs. Wagner turned to Jack, standing behind her chair as usual, and asked
for some wine. Madame Fontaine instantly took up the nearly empty bottle
by her side, and, half-filling a glass, handed it with grave politeness
across the table. "If you have no objection," she said, "we will finish
one bottle, before we open another."

Mrs. Wagner drank her small portion of wine at a draught. "It doesn't
seem to keep well, after it has once been opened," she remarked, as she
set down her glass. "The wine has quite lost the good flavor it had
yesterday."

"It ought to keep well," said Mr. Keller, speaking from his place at the
top of the table. "It's old wine, and good wine. Let me taste what is
left."

Joseph advanced to carry the remains of the wine to his master. But
Madame Fontaine was beforehand with him. "Open the other bottle
directly," she said--and rose so hurriedly to take the wine herself to
Mr. Keller, that she caught her foot in her dress. In saving herself from
falling, she lost her hold of the bottle. It broke in two pieces, and the
little wine left in it ran out on the floor.

"Pray forgive me," she said, smiling faintly. "It is the first thing I
have broken since I have been in the house."

The wine from the new bottle was offered to Mrs. Wagner. She declined to
take any: and she left her dinner unfinished on her plate.

"My appetite is very easily spoilt," she said. "I dare say there might
have been something I didn't notice in the glass--or perhaps my taste may
be out of order."

"Very likely," said Mr. Keller. "You didn't find anything wrong with the
wine yesterday. And there is certainly nothing to complain of in the new
bottle," he added, after tasting it. "Let us have your opinion, Madame
Fontaine."

He filled the housekeeper's glass. "I am a poor judge of wine," she
remarked humbly. "It seems to me to be delicious."

She put her glass down, and noticed that Jack's eyes were fixed on her,
with a solemn and scrutinizing attention. "Do you see anything remarkable
in me?" she asked lightly.

"I was thinking," Jack answered.

"Thinking of what?"

"This is the first time I ever saw you in danger of tumbling down. It
used to be a remark of mine, at Wurzburg, that you were as sure-footed as
a cat. That's all."

"Don't you know that there are exceptions to all rules?" said Madame
Fontaine, as amiably as ever. "I notice an exception in You," she
conti