PART I.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

Mesdames Folibel occupied a double set of rooms _au premier_ on the Boulevard des Italiens. On a door to the right a large brass plate announced that Madame Augustine Folibel presided over “_lingerie et dentelles_,” and invited the public to “_tourner le bouton_.” To the left a large steel plate proclaimed Madame Alexandrine Folibel “_modiste_,” and invited the public to ring the bell. But after a certain hour every day both these invitations were negatived by a page in buttons, who, stationed at either door, kept the way open for the ceaseless flow of visitors passing in and out of the two establishments. My friend Berthe de Bonton was just turning in to the _lingerie_ department when I came up the stairs.

“How lucky!” she cried, running across the landing to me, then _sotto voce_: “Madame Clifford [pronounced Cliefore] is here, and wants me to choose a bonnet for her. Now, if there’s a thing I hate, it is choosing a bonnet for an Englishwoman. To begin with, they don’t possess the first rudiments of culture in dress, then they can never make up their minds, and they find everything too dear; but the crowning absurdity is that they bring their husbands with them, and _consult them!_ _Figurez-vous, ma chère!_” And Berthe, with a Frenchwoman’s keen sense of the comic, laughed merrily at the ludicrous conceit. I laughed with her, though not quite from the same point of view.

“I made an excuse to get away for a few minutes, and left the _ménage_ discussing a pink tulle with marabout and beetle-wings trimming--_un petit poème, chérie_--but,” she caught me by the arm, “fancy Madame Clifford’s complexion under it!”

“_Ah, bonjour, mesdames!_ I am at the order of _ces dames_. Will they take the pains to seat themselves just for one second?” continued Madame Augustine, who greeted us in the first _salon_, where she was carrying on a warm debate on the relative merits of Alençon _versus_ Valenciennes as a trimming for a bridal _peignoir_.

“I merely wanted to say a word with reference to my order of yesterday. Where is Mademoiselle Florine?” inquired Berthe, looking round the room, where there were several groups ordering pretty things.

“Florine! Florine!” called out Madame Augustine.

“_Voici, madame!_”

Mademoiselle Florine was a plump little _boulette_ of a woman, who wore her nose _retroussé_ and always looked at you as if she had reason to complain of you. Without being uncivil, she looked it; her nose had a supercilious expression that made you feel it was considering you _de haut en bas_. The fact is, Mademoiselle Florine was not happy. She was disappointed, not in love, but with life in general, and with _lingerie_ in particular. She had adopted _lingerie_ as a vocation, and now it was going down in the world; it was degenerating into _pacotille_; _grandes dames_ began to grow cold about it, and to wear collars and cuffs that a _petite bourgeoise_ would have turned up her nose at ten years ago. More grievous still was the change that had come over petticoats. The deterioration in this line she took terribly to heart, and the surest way to enlist her good graces and secure her interest in your order, be it ever so small, was to preface it with a sigh or a sneer at red Balmorals or other gaudy and economical inventions which had dethroned the snowy _jupon blanc_ of her youth, with its tucks and frills and dainty edgings of lace or embroidery. Berthe, it so happened, very strongly shared this dislike to colored petticoats, and was guilty of considerable extravagance in the choice of white ones; Mademoiselle Florine’s sympathies consequently went out to her, and, no matter how busily she was engaged or with whom, she would fly to Berthe as to a kindred soul the moment she appeared.

“I have been thinking over those _jupons à traine_ that I ordered yesterday,” said Berthe to the pugnacious-looking little _lingère_, “and I have an idea that the _entre-deux anglais_ will be a failure. We ought to have decided on Valenciennes.”

“Ah! I thought Madame la Comtesse would come round to it!” observed Mademoiselle Florine with a smile of supreme satisfaction. “I told Madame la Comtesse it was a mistake.”

“Yes, I felt you didn’t approve; but really twelve hundred francs for six petticoats did seem a great deal,” observed Berthe deprecatingly. “Now, suppose we put alternately one row of deep _entre-deux_ and a _tuyauté de batiste_ edged with a narrow Valenciennes instead of all Valenciennes?”

“_Voyons--réfléchissons!_” said Mademoiselle Florine, putting her finger to her lips, and knitting her brow.

“It occurred to me in my bed last night,” continued Berthe, “and I fell asleep and actually dreamed of it, and you can’t think how pretty it looked, so light and at the same time _très garni_.”

“So much the better! Talk to me of a customer like that!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Florine, clasping her hands and turning to me with a look of admiration which was almost affecting from its earnestness. “There is some compensation in working for madame, at least. If those ladies knew what I have to endure from three-quarters of the world!” And she threw up her hands and shook her head in the direction of the _premier salon_. “But let me get out the models, and see how this dream of Madame la Comtesse’s looks in reality.” Boxes of lace and embroidery were ordered out by the excited _lingère_, and under her deft and nimble fingers the dream was illustrated in the course of a few minutes. Berthe was undecided. She sat down and surveyed the combination in silent perplexity.

“Really this question of _jupons_ makes life too complicated!” she said presently; “and now I begin to ask myself if these will go with any of my new dresses? The crinoline _éventail_ is going out, Monsieur Grandhomme told me, and they will never go with the _queue de moineau_ that he is bringing in!”

Here was a predicament!

“_Attendez_,” said Florine, dropping a dozen _rouleaux_ of lace on the floor as if such costly rags, the mere mortar and clay of her airy architecture, were not worth a thought. “Let us leave the question of _jupons_ unsettled for a while; I will go myself this evening and discuss the toilettes of Madame la Comtesse with her _femme de chambre_; we will see the style and fall of the new skirts, and adapt the _jupons_ to them.”

“How good you are!” exclaimed Berthe, looking and feeling grateful for this unlooked-for solution of her difficulty.

“It is a consolation to me, Madame la Comtesse,” replied Mademoiselle Florine with a sigh, “and I need a little now and then!”

We wished her good-morning. “Let us go back now to Alexandrine,” said Berthe; “I hope Mrs. Clifford has made up her mind by this time.” But the hope was vain. Mrs. Clifford was standing with her back to the long mirror, looking at herself as reflected in a hand-glass that she turned so as to view her head in every possible aspect, while Mr. Clifford looked on. “Do you think it does?” she inquired as we came up to her.

“I think a darker shade would suit you better,” I said; “that pale pink has no mercy on one’s complexion.”

“I’ve tried on nearly every bonnet on the table,” she said, looking very miserable, “and they don’t any of them seem to do.”

“Madame will not understand that the first condition of a bonnet’s suiting, after the complexion of course, is that the hair should be dressed with regard to it,” interposed Madame Alexandrine, who I could see by her flushed face and nervous manner was, as she would say herself, _à bout de patience_; “these bonnets are all made for the _coiffure à la mode_, whereas madame wears _un peigne à galerie_.”

“_Dieu!_ but it is six months since the _peigne à galerie_ has been heard of!”

I suggested, in aid of this undeniable argument, that the comb should be suppressed.

“Oh! dear, no, I wouldn’t give it up for the world!” said Mrs. Clifford, with the emphatic manner she might have used if I had proposed her giving up her spectacles.

“Then you must have one made to order.”

“Yes,” said Madame Alexandrine, “I will make one for madame after a _modèle à part_.”

“But then it will be dowdy and old-fashioned,” demurred the Englishwoman.

“Then let madame sacrifice _le peigne à galerie_! What sacrifice is it, after all? Nobody wears them now; they belong to a past age,” argued Madame Alexandrine, appealing to me.

“This one was a present from my husband,” replied Mrs. Clifford, in a tone that seemed to say: “You understand, there is nothing more to be said.”

I did not dare look at Berthe. Luckily she was beside me, so I could not see her face, but I saw the muff go up in a very expressive way, and she suddenly disappeared into a little _salon_ to the left, set apart for caps and _coiffures de bal_. I heard a smothered “burst,” and a treacherous _armoire à glace_ revealed her thrown back in an arm-chair, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, and convulsed with laughter.

Madame Folibel, whose risible faculties long and hard training had brought under perfect control, received the communication, however, with unruffled equanimity.

“That explains why madame holds to it,” she answered very seriously; “it is natural and affecting. Still, one must be reasonable; one must not sacrifice too much to a sentiment. Monsieur would not wish it,” turning to the gentleman, who stood with his back to the fireplace listening in solemn silence to the controversy. “Monsieur understands that the chief point in madame’s toilette is her bonnet. I grieve to say English ladies themselves do not sufficiently realize the supremacy of the bonnet; yet a moment’s reflection ought to show them how all-important it is, how necessary that every other feature in the dress should succumb to it. The complexion, the hair, the shape of the head, are all at the mercy of the _chapeau_. Of what avail is a handsome dress, and fashionable shawl or mantle, costly fur, lace--an irreproachable _tout-ensemble_, in fine--if the bonnet be unbecoming? All these are but the _rez-de-chaussée_ and the _entresol_, so to speak, while the _chapeau_ is the crown of the edifice. Le chapeau enfin c’est la femme! [The bonnet, in fact, is the woman!]” At this climax Madame Folibel paused. Mr. Clifford, who had listened as solemn as a judge, his hands in his pockets, and not a muscle of his face moving, while the _modiste_, looking straight at him, delivered herself of her _credo_, now turned to me.

“Unquestionably,” he said in a serious and impressive tone, “there must be a place in heaven for these people. They are thoroughly in earnest.” Mrs. Clifford took advantage of the aside between her husband and me to follow up Madame Folibel’s oration by a few private remarks.

Clearly she was staggered in her fidelity to the “sentiment” which interfered so alarmingly with the success of the “crown of the edifice,” but she had not the honesty to confess it outright. She was ashamed of giving in. Without being often one whit less devoted to the vanities of life, an Englishwoman is held back by this kind of _mauvaise honte_ from proclaiming her allegiance to them. She is ashamed of being in earnest about folly. Now, this British idiosyncrasy is quite foreign to a Frenchwoman; even when she is personally, either from character or circumstances, indifferent to the great fact of dress, she is always alive to its importance in the abstract, and will discuss it without any assumption of contemning wisdom, but soberly and intelligently, as befits a grave subject of recognized importance to her sisterhood in the carrying on of life.

“What do you advise me to do, dear?” said Mrs. Clifford, appealing to her husband, the wife and the woman warring vexedly in her spirit.

“Give in,” said Mr. Clifford. “What in the name of mercy could you do else! A dozen men in your place would have capitulated after that broadside ending in the woman and the bonnet.”

“What does monsieur say?” inquired Madame Folibel.

Monsieur had answered his wife with his eyes fixed on the Frenchwoman, as if she were a wild variety of the species that he had never come upon before, and might not have an opportunity of studying again.

“I suppose I must sacrifice the comb,” observed Mrs. Clifford, affecting a sort of bored indifference and looking about for her old bonnet, “so we will leave the choice of the model open till I have had a conversation with Macravock, my maid, and see what she can do with my hair; she is very clever at hair-dressing.”

“Oh! de grâce, madame!” exclaimed La Folibel, terrified at the rough Scotch name that boded ill for the _couronnement_. “Your maid, instead of mending matters, will complicate them still more. You must put yourself in the hands of a _coiffeur_ who understands physiognomy, and who will study yours before he decides upon the necessary change. If madame does not know such a man, I can recommend her mine, a _coiffeur_ in whom I have unlimited trust. I send him numbers of my customers, he never fails to please them, and I can trust him not to compromise me. Madame understands the success of my bonnets depends in no small degree on the way in which the head is adjusted for them. _Il y a des têtes impossibles_ that I could not commit my reputation to. I am sometimes obliged to make a bonnet for them, but I never sign it. I have my name removed from the lining, and so edit the thing anonymously. It would compromise me irremediably if my signature were seen on some of your country-women’s heads!”

Mrs. Clifford, awakened to the responsibility she was about to incur, promised to consult the artist instead of her Scotch maid; whereupon Madame Folibel handed her a large card which bore the name Monsieur de Bysterveld and his address. Under both was a note setting forth his capillary capabilities, and informing the public that--

“Monsieur de Bysterveld undertakes to prove that it is possible to become a hair-dresser and yet remain a gentleman.”

The _modiste_ then assisted Mrs. Clifford to tie on her bonnet, observing, while she smoothed out the ribbon carefully as if trying to make the best of a bad case:

“I am glad for her own sake that madame has consented to give up that _peigne à galerie_. It really is an injustice to her head, and it is simply out of the question her having a _chapeau convenable_ while that impediment exists. Madame will be quite another person,” she continued, addressing Mr. Clifford. “Monsieur will not recognize her with a new chignon and in a bonnet of mine.”

“Oh! then I protest,” said Mr. Clifford dryly; he understood French, but did not speak it--“I protest against both the chignon and the bonnet, madame.”

“_Plaît-il, monsieur?_” said Madame Folibel, looking from one to the other of us.

“Dear Walter! she means I shall be so much improved,” explained the wife, laughing.

“Improved!” repeated Mr. Clifford, not lifting his eye-brows, but writing _incredulity_ on every line of his face.

His wife blushed, and her eyes rested on his for a moment. Then, turning quickly to Madame Folibel, she made some final arrangement about a meeting for the following day.

Just at this juncture Berthe came back. I was glad she was not there in time to catch the absurd little passage between the two. A husband paying a compliment to his wife, and she blushing under it after a ten years’ _ménage_, would have been a delicious morsel of the _ridicule anglais_ that Berthe could not have withstood; it would have diverted her _salon_ for a week.

“Well?” she said, five notes of interrogation plainly adding: “Are you ever going to have done?”

“_C’est décidé_,” answered Madame Folibel, coming forward with an air of triumph. “Madame sacrifices the comb!”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Berthe. “I congratulate you, _chère madame_. Even mentally, you will be the better of it. For my part, I know no little misery more demoralizing than an unbecoming bonnet.”

We all went down-stairs together, but at the street-door we parted from the Cliffords.

“Where are you going now?” asked Berthe.

“To the _réunion_ at the Rue de Monceau,” I said. “I got the _faire-part_ last night, and I want particularly to be there to try and get a child into the Succursale school. There is only one vacancy, and we are six trying for it, so I fear my little _protégée_ has small chance of success. Come and give me your vote, Berthe.”

“_Chérie_, I would with pleasure, but I am so dreadfully busy this afternoon: I promised La Princesse M---- to look in during the rehearsal at her house; and then I’ve not been to Madame de B----’s for an age, and I almost swore I’d go to-day.”

“Well, what’s to prevent your going afterwards?” I cried. “It’s not yet four, and the _réunion_ does not last more than an hour. Monsieur le Curé arrives at a quarter-past four, and leaves at five.”

“But one is bored to death waiting for him,” argued Berthe, “and the room is so hot _chez les bonnes sœurs_, and there won’t be a cat there to-day, I’m sure; everybody is at the skating.”

“Oh! the parish and the skating don’t interfere with each other,” I cried, laughing; “but I see you can’t come, so good-by. I must be off. Mademoiselle de Galliac will be waiting for me.”

“_Comment!_ Is _la petite_ to be there? I particularly want to see her. I want to know how her snow-storm costume went off at the Marine, for in the crowd I never caught sight of her. _Chère amie_, I’ll go with you to Monceau. After all,” she continued, drawing a long sigh as we stepped into her carriage, “this life won’t last for ever; one must think now and then of one’s poor soul.”

We were a little behind our time for the canvassing. Four of my rivals were before me in the field, and had robbed me of a few votes that I might have received by being there a quarter of an hour sooner.

“Now, Berthe,” I cried, “it’s your fault, so you must bestir yourself to help me. Attack those young girls in the window, and persuade them to vote for my child.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know--go and ask them.”

Berthe charged valiantly at the group in the window, introducing herself by embracing the young girls all round, and declaring her perfect confidence in their support. They gathered round her, fascinated at once by her beauty and her frank, attractive manner. I saw at a glance that the votes were safe, and that I had no need to bring up reinforcements in that quarter, so I set to work elsewhere.

Perhaps it would interest my readers to hear something of the good work itself. Its object is to take charge of orphans of the poorest class, clothe, feed, and educate them till the age of twenty-one. The members are exclusively ladies, married or single. To be a member, it is necessary to be a parishioner, to pay a small sum yearly for the maintenance of the confraternity, and to assist at the monthly meetings, where the wants, plans, and progress of the work are discussed in presence of the curé, who is always president, and another parish clergyman elected _directeur_, the rest of the board--treasurer, secretary, and vice-president--being chosen from amongst the members. When an orphan is proposed for admission, a written statement giving her birth, parentage, and circumstances, and setting forth the special claims of her case, is placed on the green table of the assembly-room, at which the dignitaries preside during the meeting. This preliminary fulfilled, the next step is to secure the votes of the confraternity. The demand being always much greater than the supply, when a vacancy occurs it is sure to be sharply contested. A zealous patroness takes care to canvass beforehand; but, from one circumstance or another, there are always a good many votes still to be disposed of on the day of the election, and the half-hour that elapses from the opening of the assembly to the arrival of the curé is spent in fighting for them, and presents a scene of interesting excitement. The patroness is looked upon as the mother of the little petitioner, who, once admitted into the orphanage, is called her “child.” Those who are long members and very zealous succeed in getting in many orphans, and thus become mothers of a numerous family. The most devoted of these mothers are generally the young girls. The way in which some of their hearts go out to their adopted children is touching and beautiful beyond description. They seem to anticipate their joys and cares, and to invest themselves with something of motherhood in their relations with the little outcasts, who look to them for help in a world where, but for them, they would apparently have no right to be--where no one cares for them, no one loves them, except the great Father who suffers the little ones to come to him, and will not have them sent away.

Every month the _sœurs_ send in a special bulletin of the conduct and health of each child, addressed to the adopted mother, and read by Monsieur le Curé at the meeting. According to the contents of the bulletin, the mothers are congratulated or the reverse. Little presents are sent to the good children, and letters of reproval written to the naughty ones. In this way, the maternal character is kept up till the children leave the shelter of their convent home. Then the mothers assist in placing them as servants or apprentices, or, better still, in getting them respectably married.

While Berthe was getting up votes for me on her side, I was busy on my own, and when the bell rang, announcing, as we thought, Monsieur le Curé, I had a pretty good poll.

The buzz of talk subsided suddenly; the high functionaries broke away from the humbler participants, and took their places at the green table, near the _fauteuils_, waiting for the curé and the vicaire. Some of the very young mothers looked eager and flurried. One in particular, who was a rival candidate with me, seemed terribly nervous. She was about seventeen. Two young mothers on either side of her were speaking words of encouragement and trying to keep up her hopes. “You must pray hard for my success,” I heard her say to one of them; “the poor old grandfather will break his heart if Jeannette is refused. He can’t take her into Les Vieillards, even if it were not against the rules, because he hasn’t a crust of bread to give her. He has nothing but what the _sœurs_ give him for himself. Oh! do pray hard that I may succeed!”

“Let us say another Pater and Ave before Monsieur le Curé comes in,” suggested her companions; and the three friends lowered their voices, and sent up their pure young hearts together in a last appeal to the Father of the fatherless in behalf of the little orphan.

The door opened. It was not Monsieur le Curé.

“_Ah, bonjour, cher ange!_” exclaimed Madame de Bérac, embracing Berthe with effusion, and talking as low as if she were “receiving” in her own _salon_. “What a charming surprise to meet you! I came to vote for Marguerite’s _protégée_, and see how my _dévouement_ is crowned!”

I expressed my satisfaction at virtue’s proving in this case its own reward.

“But why have I not seen you before?” inquired Berthe. “I did not even know you were in town.”

“I hardly know it yet myself,” replied Madame de Bérac. “I only arrived last night. Marguerite wrote to me imploring me to be here if I could in time to vote for her. _Chère aimée_,” she continued, turning to me, “till you reminded me of it, I actually forgot I was a member at all!”

“Well, now that you are in town, you mean to stay?” said Berthe.

“_Hélas_, I only remain a week.”

“But you said you meant to spend the carnival here?”

“When I said so, I believed it.”

“And what has changed your plans?” I inquired.

Madame shrugged her shoulders. “My husband has been so impolite as to tell me that he has no money! One cannot stay in Paris without money.”

“_Quel homme!_” exclaimed Berthe, with a look of pity and disgust.

The door opened again. This time it was the curé. After the usual blessing and prayer, he declared the _séance_ opened, and read the reports of the board and the bulletins. These matters disposed of, the business of the election began at once. A brisk cross-examination soon put four candidates _hors de concours_. Two had fathers who could support them, but wouldn’t. The confraternity found the children not qualified for its charge. Two others were not parishioners of St. Philippe du Roule. Of the six who had started, two therefore only remained in the field. One was mine, the other was the _protégée_ of the young girl whose conversation I had just overheard. We were to divide the votes between us. Our respective orphans had the necessary qualifications. It only remained to see which of the two, as the more destitute, could establish the primary claim on the protection of the confraternity. Mine was ten years of age. She had two tiny brothers and a sister some five years older than herself who, since the death of their mother, six months ago, had supported the whole family by working as a _blanchisseuse de fin_ by day, and as a _lingère_ half the night. But the bread-winner gave way under the load of work, and now lay sick at the hospital, while the brothers and the sister, clinging to each other in a fireless garret, cried out for bread to the rich brothers who could not hear them. The Curé de Ste. Clothilde had promised to find shelter for the boys; but what was to be done with the girl? I had stated these plain facts in the petition, and now verbally recommended the case to the compassion of the members, and once again asked for their votes.

My rival’s child was twelve years of age. She had no brothers or sisters. She was utterly destitute, but in good health, and nearly of an age to support herself.

Monsieur le Curé listened to the two cases, and, when he had heard both, his judgment seemed strongly impressed in favor of mine.

In spite of the interest I felt in my poor little _protégée_, I could not help regretting the impending failure of my young competitor opposite. She had answered the curé’s questions in short, nervous monosyllables, and now sat drinking in every word he said, two fever-spots burning on her cheeks, while her eyes swam with tears that all her efforts failed to suppress. A face of seventeen is always interesting; but in this one there was something more than the mere attractiveness of early youth and innocence. There was an eager, awakened expression in the clear blue eyes, and a sensitive play about the grave, full lips that one seldom sees in so young a face. She was simply, almost quaintly dressed as contrasted with the costly elegance of most of the dresses around her. The black bonnet with the wreath of violets resting on the fair hair, and the neat but perfectly plain black reps costume, bespoke not poverty, but the very strictest economy.

“To the vote, _mesdames_,” said the curé. “I fear, Mademoiselle Hélène, you have a bad chance.”

“O Monsieur le Curé!” burst from Hélène, “her poor old grandfather will die of disappointment.”

“My poor child, I hope not,” said the curé, evidently touched by her distress, but unable to repress a smile at this extreme view. “Your _protegée’s_ having a grandfather is indeed an advantage on the wrong side.”

“He’s blind, Monsieur le Curé! and paralyzed! and eighty-six years old!” urged Hélène, gaining courage from desperation, “and his one prayer is to see the _petite_ safe somewhere before he dies. O Monsieur le Curé!--” She stopped, the big tears rolling down her cheeks.

“_Voyons!_” said the good old pastor, rubbing his nose, and fidgeting at his spectacles. “Let us take the vote, and then we shall see. You have a child already, have you not, mademoiselle?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Curé; I have two, but one is in the country, at the Succursale.”

The votes were taken, and, by a very small majority, I carried it. My voters congratulated me, while Hélène’s friends crowded round her, condoling. But the poor child would not be comforted; overcome by the previous emotion and the final disappointment, she sobbed as if her heart would break.

“Oh! really, it’s too cruel to let that dear child be disappointed,” said Berthe. “Can’t we do something, Monsieur le Curé? Can’t we by any possibility squeeze in another child?”

“Nothing easier, madame; you have only to create a new _bourse_, or get subscribers to the amount of three hundred francs a year for the term of the child’s education,” replied Monsieur le Curé.

“Then I subscribe for two years down,” said Berthe impulsively. “Who follows suit?”

“I do,” said another speaker; “I will subscribe for one year!”

“And I will give forty francs,” said a third.

“And I a hundred,” said the curé, who was always to the fore when a good work was to be helped on.

In a few minutes, the green table glistened with gold pieces and notes. It was all done so quickly that Hélène had not had time to ask what it was all about, when Berthe ran up to her with the good news that her child was taken in, and, embracing her tenderly, bade her dry her tears.

“How good you are, madame!” said the young girl, returning her caress with fervor; “but I knew you were good; you have the face of an angel!”

“It is better to have the heart of one,” said Berthe, laughing, and hastily rubbing a dew-drop from her own fair face.

“Now, I must make haste away, or I shall be late for my lesson,” said Hélène, after thanking the members who gathered about her, this time embracing and congratulating.

“What lesson are you going to take, _ma petite_?” inquired Berthe affectionately.

“I am going to give one, madame,” replied Hélène. “I live by giving music lessons.”

“Then you must come and give me some,” said Berthe. “Here is my address. Come to me to-morrow as early as you can.”

“You are not sorry I made you come, are you, Berthe?” I asked, as we went out together.

“Sorry! I would not have missed it for the world.”