ns, knew, and yet did not
know, the dear little Doctor. So gentle, so kind, so skilful, so
patient, so lenient; so careless of the rich and so attentive to the
poor; a man, all in all, such as, should you once love him, you would
love him forever. So very learned, too, but with apparently no idea of
how to _show himself_ to his social profit,--two features much more
smiled at than respected, not to say admired, by a people remote from
the seats of learning, and spending most of their esteem upon animal
heroisms and exterior display.

"Alas!" said his wealthy acquaintances, "what a pity; when he might as
well be rich."

"Yes, his father has plenty."

"Certainly, and gives it freely. But intends his son shall see none of
it."

"His son? You dare not so much as mention him."

"Well, well, how strange! But they can never agree--not even upon their
name. Is not that droll?--a man named General Villivicencio, and his
son, Dr. Mossy!"

"Oh, that is nothing; it is only that the Doctor drops the _de
Villivicencio_."

"Drops the _de Villivicencio?_ but I think the _de Villivicencio_ drops
him, ho, ho, ho,--_diable!_"

Next to the residence of good Dr. Mossy towered the narrow,
red-brick-front mansion of young Madame Delicieuse, firm friend at once
and always of those two antipodes, General Villivicencio and Dr. Mossy.
Its dark, covered carriage-way was ever rumbling, and, with nightfall,
its drawing-rooms always sent forth a luxurious light from the
lace-curtained windows of the second-story balconies.

It was one of the sights of the Rue Royale to see by night its tall,
narrow outline reaching high up toward the stars, with all its windows
aglow.

The Madame had had some tastes of human experience; had been betrothed
at sixteen (to a man she did not love, "being at that time a fool," as
she said); one summer day at noon had been a bride, and at sundown--a
widow. Accidental discharge of the tipsy bridegroom's own pistol. Pass
it by! It left but one lasting effect on her, a special detestation of
quarrels and weapons.

The little maidens whom poor parentage has doomed to sit upon street
door-sills and nurse their infant brothers have a game of "choosing" the
beautiful ladies who sweep by along the pavement; but in Rue Royale
there was no choosing; every little damsel must own Madame Delicieuse or
nobody, and as that richly adorned and regal favorite of old General
Villivicencio came along they would lift their big,