seen an old hare, pursued
by dogs, force another hare to get out of the trail so as to deceive the
hunters. Darling, did Monsieur Le Menil ever talk to you about hares?"

Therese replied she did not know, and that she thought hunters were
tiresome.

Miss Bell exclaimed. She did not think M. Le Menil was ever tiresome
when talking of the hares that danced in the moonlight on the plains and
among the vines. She would like to raise a hare, like Phanion.

"Darling, you do not know Phanion. Oh, I am sure that Monsieur Dechartre
knows her. She was beautiful, and dear to poets. She lived in the Island
of Cos, beside a dell which, covered with lemon-trees, descended to
the blue sea. And they say that she looked at the blue waves. I related
Phanion's history to Monsieur Le Menil, and he was very glad to hear it.
She had received from some hunter a little hare with long ears. She
held it on her knees and fed it on spring flowers. It loved Phanion and
forgot its mother. It died before having eaten too many flowers. Phanion
lamented over its loss. She buried it in the lemon-grove, in a grave
which she could see from her bed. And the shade of the little hare was
consoled by the songs of the poets."

The good Madame Marmet said that M. Le Menil pleased by his elegant and
discreet manners, which young men no longer practise. She would have
liked to see him. She wanted him to do something for her.

"Or, rather, for my nephew," she said. "He is a captain in the
artillery, and his chiefs like him. His colonel was for a long time
under orders of Monsieur Le Menil's uncle, General La Briche. If
Monsieur Le Menil would ask his uncle to write to Colonel Faure in favor
of my nephew I should be grateful to him. My nephew is not a stranger to
Monsieur Le Menil. They met last year at the masked ball which Captain
de Lassay gave at the hotel at Caen."

Madame Marmet cast down her eyes and added:

"The invited guests, naturally, were not society women. But it is said
some of them were very pretty. They came from Paris. My nephew, who gave
these details to me, was dressed as a coachman. Monsieur Le Menil was
dressed as a Hussar of Death, and he had much success."

Miss Bell said that she was sorry not to have known that M. Le Menil was
in Florence. Certainly, she should have invited him to come to Fiesole.

Dechartre remained sombre and distant during the rest of the dinner: and
when, at the moment of leaving, Therese extended her hand to