her, and that which I have just
received in these words may serve me for an abiding rule of life. I
left Spain, a fugitive and penniless, but I have to-day received from
my family a sum sufficient for my needs. You will allow me to send some
poor Spaniard in my place."

In other words, he seemed to me to say, "This little game must stop." He
rose with an air of marvelous dignity, and left me quite upset by such
unheard-of delicacy in a man of his class. He went downstairs and asked
to speak with my father.

At dinner my father said to me with a smile:

"Louise, you have been learning Spanish from an ex-minister and a man
condemned to death."

"The Duc de Soria," I said.

"Duke!" replied my father. "No, he is not that any longer; he takes the
title now of Baron de Macumer from a property which still remains to him
in Sardinia. He is something of an original, I think."

"Don't brand with that word, which with you always implies some mockery
and scorn, a man who is your equal, and who, I believe, has a noble
nature."

"Baronne de Macumer?" exclaimed my father, with a laughing glance at me.

Pride kept my eyes fixed on the table.

"But," said my mother, "Henarez must have met the Spanish ambassador on
the steps?"

"Yes," replied my father, "the ambassador asked me if I was conspiring
against the King, his master; but he greeted the ex-grandee of Spain
with much deference, and placed his services at his disposal."

All this, dear, Mme. de l'Estorade, happened a fortnight ago, and it
is a fortnight now since I have seen the man who loves me, for that he
loves me there is not a doubt. What is he about? If only I were a fly,
or a mouse, or a sparrow! I want to see him alone, myself unseen, at his
house. Only think, a man exists, to whom I can say, "Go and die for me!"
And he is so made that he would go, at least I think so. Anyhow, there
is in Paris a man who occupies my thoughts, and whose glance pours
sunshine into my soul. Is not such a man an enemy, whom I ought to
trample under foot? What? There is a man who has become necessary to
me--a man without whom I don't know how to live! You married, and I--in
love! Four little months, and those two doves, whose wings erst bore
them so high, have fluttered down upon the flat stretches of real life!

Sunday.

Yesterday, at the Italian Opera, I could feel some one was looking at
me; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two wells of fire, gleaming
like carbuncles