from one of the little pockets, she brushed
from off the seat about a pinch of dust, if so
much, and sat down just opposite.

"Then if Madame knew," said I, feeling
that an opening for a compliment was given
me, which only the dullest hind would have
neglected; " then if Madame knew what a
becoming frame to a charming picture it was,
she would sit there all day long."

She smoothed down her apron, and said
with a smile, it was très bien dit.

"Tis the truth, Ma'am," I said, bluntly,
"and my friend Wilbraham is a stock and a
stone!"

"Your friend Vilbram; " she said; " O
mon Dieu! you know him! There is another
friend of his, one Monsieur Truvloks, who had
been staying with us,—a good-hearted, well-
intentioned sailor, but, mon Dieu, so absurd!"
And thereupon Madame chattered through
a whole list of folk, and all about them. In
one quarter of an hour we were the best
friends in the world. " Come," said she,
rising, "now I will show you your apartment;
the prettiest little apartment in the
world."

II.

The prettiest little apartment in the world
opened on the court; for there was nothing
short of a court in Madame's hôtel. Nothing
short, too, of a fountain in the centre, and
orange-trees in square green boxes ranged
regimentally about. Coming out through the
glass doors of the prettiest apartment in the
world, you would see there was a gallery
overhead, making a canopy, and pleasant
shade, with a little wooden chair for you to
sit on, and smoke, and look at the fountain
and orange-trees. So that he who would
have quarrelled with Madame's description
of her apartment, as being too boastful, must
have been a hard, sour, practical churl. He
might as well have tackled Mr. Sterne's
Parisian wig-maker for offering the buckle to
be submerged in the ocean. The sentimental
clergyman thought a pail of water would
have been as convenient: not so poetical,
truly. I know, had he been standing before
her as she said it—the sentimental clergyman
— he would have agreed with her heartily,
and taken her hand in his, and kept it there
for Heaven only knows how long.

Dinner, Madame had said, would be
towards three o'clock, in that long glass
corridor, which ran down one side of the court.
No more fitting place. Decidedly Petiteseaux
was more advanced than it had first
appeared to me, and was making fast Glorious
Four Seasons era. By that dinner-time,
Madame had also said, I should have
opportunity of seeing her company gathered
together,—the quality of which I had already
guessed; for there was a town of fair size
and respectability, not many leagues away;
in which town, as of course, abounded gentlemen
of working habits; small merchants,
smaller advocates, physicians, and the like,
who had not wealth enough for distant
travel, and were glad to turn Petiteseaux
into a small pinchbeck health-restoring
watering-place. And so all the quality of
the respectable town came to Petiteseaux
when it could.

At dinner, then, I saw them all. Strange
to say, they were of the quality I had guessed;
for there was a little round black man with
sharp ferret eyes, who had no need to write
avocat after his name of Tourlou. Neither
had the long grave man in black, who was called
Riquet, any reason to set out on his card that
he was of the Faculty of Medicine. He was
out-speaking, as it were, of his profession. So,
too, was it with the notary, or scribbling-
man, Faquinet; and with Monsieur le Curé,
whose garb spoke for him. There were half
a dozen or so of merchants, or trading-men,
who had not such visible marks of their calling
about them; fat, twinkling-eyed fellows,
to whom waters must have been of
prodigious benefit. But three ladies only, of
the company: Madame Tourlou, Madame
Faquinet, and Madame Badine; betwixt
whom raged fires of jealousy, and undying
animosity.

These elements, with Madame Croquette
herself at the head of her own table, were
gathered together in the little glass pavilion,
at the hour of dinner. I was set next to
Madame Croquette, as stranger, and person
of distinction. Needless to say, Madame's
demi-toilette was charming. No staring,
or taking measure of the stranger and his
points; he might have been sitting there
as in his accustomed seat, every day this
month back. Monsieur le Curé, who sat
beside me, and who, I believe, was dean, or
vicar-general, or dignitary of some sort, in
contiguous districts, addressed me in his
smooth, placid tones, as though he had
parted from me at breakfast. He was good
enough to detail to me the origin and
progress of the malady that had brought him
to the waters, taking in Madame towards
the close, who listened with extraordinary
interest.

Gentle little woman! she had heard it
twenty times, I could swear. " O ciel!"
she sighed, with hand clasped, "how cruelly
you must have suffered, Monsieur le Curé!"

"Mesdames and Messieurs," said the good
man, with more force than appropriateness,
"l can assure you that I had a fire within
my veins that can only be likened to what
the bon Dieu has prepared for such as do
not love him. My interior was, so to speak,
bouleversé! " Here the vicar looked round
with an interesting aspect almost indescribable.

"O, heavens," said Madame again, with
hands still clasped, and a tearful swimming
look in her eyes, "how cruelly you must have
suffered!"

I felt as if I could have gladly taken on me