ng to turn up."

"And carry you back to Italy, I suppose?"

"Then you know I have just been there?"

"I know all about it. Charnot told me of your meeting, and your romantic
drive by moonlight. By the way, he's come back with a bad cold; did you
know that?"

I assumed an air of sympathy:

"Poor man! When did he get back?"

"The day before yesterday. Of course I was the first to hear of it, and
we spent yesterday evening together. It may surprise you, Mouillard, and
you may think I exaggerate, but I think Jeanne has come back prettier
than she went."

"Do you really think so?"

"I really do. That southern sun--look out, my dear Mouillard, your line
is half out of water--has brought back her roses (they're brighter than
ever, I declare), and the good spirits she had lost, too, poor girl. She
is cheerful again now, as she used to be. I was very anxious about her
at one time. You know her sad story?"

"Yes."

"The fellow was a scoundrel, my dear Mouillard, a regular scoundrel! I
never was in favor of the match, myself. Charnot let himself be drawn
into it by an old college friend. I told him over and over again, 'It's
Jeanne's dowry he's after, Charnot--I'm convinced of it. He'll treat
Jeanne badly and make her miserable, mark my words.' But I wasted my
breath; he wouldn't listen to a word. Anyhow, it's quite off now. But
it was no slight shock, I can tell you; and it gave me great pain to
witness the poor child's sufferings."

"You are so kind-hearted, Monsieur Flamaran!"

"It's not that, Mouillard; but I have known Jeanne ever since she was
born. I watched her grow up, and I loved her when she was still a little
mite; she's as good as my adoptive daughter. You understand me when I
say adoptive. I do not mean that there exists between us that legal
bond in imitation of nature which is permitted by our codes--'adoptio
imitatur naturam'; not that, but that I love her like a
daughter--Sidonie never having presented me with a daughter, nor with a
son either, for that matter."

A cry from Jupille interrupted M. Flamaran:

"Can't you hear it rattle?"

The good man was tearing to us, waving his arms like a madman, the folds
of his trousers flapping about his thin legs like banners in the wind.

We leaped to our feet, and my first idea, an absurd one enough, was that
a rattlesnake was hurrying through the grass to our attack.

I was very far from the truth. The matter really was a new line,
invented by M. Ju