The latter, unable to complete the masterpiece
which he loved more than anything else on earth, sought death, and
perished in the crimson waters of the Bievre.

The _maitre_ had no enemies, but his quarrel with Riesener caused a fear
to spring up in the widow's heart that the apprentice might have been
guilty of his murder, so she refused to see him when, hearing of his
master's death, he returned, stricken with remorse, to finish the desk.
On it were the statuettes modeled in perfect likeness of Mlle. de
Vaubernier, a wily little milliner of Riesener's bohemian set who had
taken this way to bring herself to the attention of Louis XV. The ruse
was successful; and after the acceptance of the desk, there was
installed a new _maitresse en titre_, the notorious Madame Du Barry,
erstwhile the pretty milliner, Mlle. de Vaubernier.

Later, Madame Du Barry sent for the now famous _ebeniste_ (cabinet
maker); and, when her negro page Zamore admitted him, he found His
Majesty Louis XV kneeling in front of the fireplace, making coffee for
her while she laughed at him for scalding his fingers. He had been
summoned to show the king the mechanism of the secret drawer, so
cunningly concealed in the king's desk that no one could find it. But
Riesener knew not the secret of his master, who had died without
revealing it. Then the red revolution came; and when the pretty pavilion
at Louveciennes was sacked, and its costly furniture hurled down the
cliff to the Seine, the king's desk, shattered almost beyond repair, was
carried to the Gobelins' factory and presented to Mme. Oeben in
recognition of her husband's workmanship. Then the secret compartment
was found to have been disclosed, and Riesener was absolved by a letter
therein, from the _maitre_, who intimated he was about to end it all
because of paralysis. Riesener marries the widow and all ends happily.

James Lane Allen, in _The Kentucky Warbler_, tells a tale of the Blue
Grass country and of a young hero who wanders after a bird's note to
find romance and the key to his own locked nature. Here is an incident
from his first forest adventure:

There was one tree he curiously looked around for, positive that he
should not be blind to it if fortunate enough to set his eyes on
one--the coffee tree. That is, he felt sure he'd recognize it if it
yielded coffee ready to drink, of which never in his life had they
given him enough. Not once throughout his long tro