dy with a countenance like a withered fern,
called Lili by her friends--a baby name singularly at variance with
its owner's character and demeanor. Mme. de Saintot was a solemn and
extremely pious woman, and a very trying partner at a game of cards.
Astolphe was supposed to be a scientific man of the first rank. He was
as ignorant as a carp, but he had compiled the articles on Sugar and
Brandy for a Dictionary of Agriculture by wholesale plunder of newspaper
articles and pillage of previous writers. It was believed all over
the department that M. Saintot was engaged upon a treatise on modern
husbandry; but though he locked himself into his study every morning, he
had not written a couple of pages in a dozen years. If anybody called
to see him, he always contrived to be discovered rummaging among his
papers, hunting for a stray note or mending a pen; but he spent the
whole time in his study on puerilities, reading the newspaper through
from end to end, cutting figures out of corks with his penknife, and
drawing patterns on his blotting-paper. He would turn over the leaves of
his Cicero to see if anything applicable to the events of the day might
catch his eye, and drag his quotation by the heels into the conversation
that evening saying, "There is a passage in Cicero which might have
been written to suit modern times," and out came his phrase, to the
astonishment of his audience. "Really," they said among themselves,
"Astolphe is a well of learning." The interesting fact circulated all
over the town, and sustained the general belief in M. de Saintot's
abilities.

After this pair came M. de Bartas, known as Adrien among the circle.
It was M. de Bartas who boomed out his song in a bass voice, and made
prodigious claims to musical knowledge. His self-conceit had taken a
stand upon solfeggi; he began by admiring his appearance while he sang,
passed thence to talking about music, and finally to talking of nothing
else. His musical tastes had become a monomania; he grew animated only
on the one subject of music; he was miserable all evening until somebody
begged him to sing. When he had bellowed one of his airs, he revived
again; strutted about, raised himself on his heels, and received
compliments with a deprecating air; but modesty did not prevent him from
going from group to group for his meed of praise; and when there was
no more to be said about the singer, he returned to the subject of the
song, discussing its difficulti