rid of me," thought Aurora; "he
is making up some pretext with which to dismiss me, and when the tenth
of March comes we shall be put into the street."

M. Grandissime extended the letter toward her, but she did not lift her
hands.

"I beg to assure you, madame, I could never have permitted this notice
to reach you from my office; I am not the Honore Grandissime for whom
this is signed."

Aurora smiled in a way to signify clearly that that was just the
subterfuge she had been anticipating. Had she been at home she would
have thrown herself, face downward, upon the bed; but she only smiled
meditatively upward at the picture of an East Indian harbor and made an
unnecessary rearrangement of her handkerchief under her folded hands.

"There are, you know,"--began Honore, with a smile which changed the
meaning to "You know very well there are"--"two Honore Grandissimes.
This one who sent you this letter is a man of color--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Aurora, with a sudden malicious sparkle.

"If you will entrust this paper to me," said Honore, quietly, "I will
see him and do now engage that you shall have no further trouble about
it. Of course, I do not mean that I will pay it, myself; I dare not
offer to take such a liberty."

Then he felt that a warm impulse had carried him a step too far.

Aurora rose up with a refusal as firm as it was silent. She neither
smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable
practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as
she spoke:

"I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice
in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter. I
shall have to attend to it myself."

"Ah! little enchantress," thought her grave-faced listener, as he gave
attention, "this, after all--ball and all--is the mood in which you look
your very, very best"--a fact which nobody knew better than the
enchantress herself.

He walked beside her toward the open door leading back into the
counting-room, and the dozen or more clerks, who, each by some ingenuity
of his own, managed to secure a glimpse of them, could not fail to feel
that they had never before seen quite so fair a couple. But she dropped
her veil, bowed M. Grandissime a polite "No farther," and passed out.

M. Grandissime walked once up and down his private office, gave the door
a soft push with his foot and lighted a cigar.

The clerk who had before acted as usher came in and hande