looking in apologetically one morning to
remark, that O Heaven she was in a state of
desolation because the lampmaker had not sent
home that lamp confided to him to repair, but
that truly he was a lampmaker against whom
the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman
seized the occasion.

"Madame, that baby——"

"Pardon, monsieur. That lamp."

"No, no, that little girl."

"But, pardon!" said Madame Bouclet, angling
for a clue; "one cannot light a little girl, or
send her to be repaired?"

"The little girl—at the house of the barber."

"Ah-h-h!" cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly
catching the idea, with her delicate little line
and rod. "Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes!
And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes,
yes! So genteel of him; is it not?"

"He is not——?"

"Not at all; not at all! He is not one of
her relations. Not at all!"

"Why then, he——"

"Perfectly!" cried Madame Bouclet, "you
are right, monsieur. It is so genteel of him.
The less relation, the more genteel. As you
say."

"Is she——?"

"The child of the barber?" Madame Bouclet
whisked up her skilful little line and rod again.
"Not at all, not at all! She is the child of——
in a word, of no one."

"The wife of the barber, then——?"

"Indubitably. As you say. The wife of
the barber receives a small stipend to take care
of her. So much by the month. Eh, then! It
is without doubt very little, for we are all poor
here."

"You are not poor, madame."

"As to my lodgers," replied Madame Bouclet,
with a smiling and a gracious bend of her head,
"no. As to all things else, so-so."

"You flatter me, madame."

"Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living
here."

Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's
part, denoting that he was about to resume his
subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet
observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate
line and rod again with triumphant success.

"Oh no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife
of the barber is not cruel to the poor child, but
she is careless. Her health is delicate, and she
sits all day, looking out at window.
Consequently, when the Corporal first came, the poor
little Bebelle was much neglected."

"It is a curious——" began Mr. The
Englishman.

"Name? That Bebelle? Again, you are
right, monsieur. But it is a playful name for
Gabrielle."

"And so the child is a mere fancy of the
Corporal's?" said Mr. The Englishman, in a gruffly
disparaging tone of voice.

"Eh well!" returned Madame Bouclet, with
a pleading shrug: "one must love something.
Human nature is weak."

("Devilish weak," muttered the Englishman
in his own language.)

"And the Corporal," pursued Madame Bouclet,
"being billeted at the barber's—where he will
probably remain a long time, for he is attached
to the General—and finding the poor unowned
child in need of being loved, and finding himself
in need of loving—why, there you have it all,
you see!"

Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation
of the matter with an indifferent grace, and
observed to himself, in an injured manner, when
he was again alone: "I shouldn't mind it so
much, if these people were not such a"—
National Participled—"sentimental people!"

There was a Cemetery outside the town, and
it happened ill for the reputation of the
Vaubanois in this sentimental connexion, that he
took a walk there that same afternoon. To be
sure there were some wonderful things in it
(from the Englishman's point of view), and of a
certainty in all Britain you would have found
nothing like it. Not to mention the fanciful
flourishes of hearts and crosses, in wood and
iron, that were planted all over the place, making
it look very like a Firework-ground where a
most splendid pyrotechnic display might be
expected after dark, there were so many wreaths
upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be,
"To my mother," "To my daughter," "To my
father," "To my brother," "To my sister," "To
my friend," and those many wreaths were in so
many stages of elaboration and decay, from the
wreath of yesterday all fresh colour and bright
beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering
wisp of straw! There were so many little
gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so
many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster
figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many
odds and ends! There were so many tributes
of remembrance hanging up, not to be
discriminated by the closest inspection from little
round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing
hues either a lady or a gentleman with a
white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion,
leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning
and most profound affliction, on the most
architectural and gorgeous urn! There were
so many surviving wives who had put their
names on the tombs of their deceased husbands
with a blank for the date of their own departure
from this weary world; and there were so many
surviving husbands who had rendered the same
homage to their deceased wives; and out of the
number there must have been so many who had
long ago married again! In fine, there was so
much in the place that would have seemed mere
frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration
that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the
poorest heap of earth was never touched by a
rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing.

"Nothing of the solemnity of Death, here,"
Mr. The Englishman had been going to say;
when this last consideration touched him with a
mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out
without saying it. "But these people are," he
insisted, by way of compensation when he was