.

"_Mon coeur, mon pauvre coeur a la tristesse en proie,
En fouillant le passe"...._

A dead stop on the part of Mdlle. Rosalie.

_"En fouillant le passe_"....

repeated the tenor, with the utmost severity of emphasis.

"_Mais, mon Dieu_, Rosalie! what are you doing?" cried Madame
Desjardins, angrily. "Why don't you go on?"

Mdlle. Rosalie burst into a flood of tears.

"I--I can't!" she sobbed. "It's so--so very difficult--and"...

Madame Desjardins flung up her hands in despair.

"_Ciel_!" she cried, "and I have been paying three francs a lesson for
you, Mademoiselle, twice a week for the last six years!"

"_Mais, maman_"....

"_Fi done_, Mademoiselle! I am ashamed of you. Make a curtsey to
Monsieur Philomene this moment, and beg his pardon; for you have spoiled
his beautiful song!"

But Monsieur Philomene would hear of no such expiation. His soul, to
use his own eloquent language, recoiled from it with horror! The
accompaniment, _a vrai dire_, was not easy, and _la bien aimable_
Mam'selle Rosalie had most kindly done her best with it. _Allons
donc!_--on condition that no more should be said on the subject,
Monsieur Philomene would volunteer to sing a little unaccompanied
romance of his own composition--a mere _bagatelle_; but a tribute to
"_les beaux yeux de ces cheres dames_!"

So Mam'selle Rosalie wiped away her tears, and Madame Desjardins
smoothed her ruffled feathers, and Monsieur Philomene warbled a
plaintive little ditty in which "_coeur_" rhymed to "_peur_" and
"_amours_" to "_toujours_" and "_le sort_" to "_la mort_" in quite the
usual way; so giving great satisfaction to all present, but most,
perhaps, to himself.

And now, hospitably anxious that each of her guests should have a chance
of achieving distinction, Madame Marotte invited Mdlle. Honoria to favor
the company with a dramatic recitation.

Mdlle. Honoria hesitated; exchanged glances with the Cyclops; and, in
order to enhance the value of her performance, began raising all kinds
of difficulties. There was no stage, for instance; and there were no
footlights; but M. Dorinet met these objections by proposing to range
all the seats at one end of the room, and to divide the stage off by a
row of lighted candles.

"But it is so difficult to render a dramatic scene without an
interlocutor!" said the young lady.

"What is it you require, _ma chere demoiselle?_" asked Madame Marotte.

"I have no interlocutor," said Mdl