fficiently for this winter. Yesterday several people said to me, 'Ah,
that's your dress of the Tuileries; it's your dress of the Austrian
Embassy.' It must be given up till next year. Good-bye, dear little
dress."

And, having said that, she placed her charming lips at hap-hazard among
my laces and kissed me in the dearest way in the world. Ah, how pleased
and proud I was of that childish and sweet fellowship! I remembered that
the evening before, on our return, the little baroness had kissed her
husband; but the kiss she had given him was a quick, dry kiss--one of
those hurried kisses with which one wishes to get through; whereas my
kiss had been prolonged and passionate. She had cordiality for the
baron, and love for me. The little baroness wasn't twenty, and she was a
coquette to the core. I say this, in the first place, to excuse her,
and, in the second place, to give an exact impression of her character.

So at noon, in the arms of Hermance, I made my entry to the reserve. It
was a dormitory of dresses, an immense room on the third story, very
large, and lined with wardrobes of white oak, carefully locked. In the
middle of the room was an ottoman, on which Hermance deposited me; after
which she slid back ten or twelve wardrobe doors, one after the other.
Dresses upon dresses! I should never be able to tell how many. All were
hung in the air by silk tape on big triangles. Hermance, however, seemed
much embarrassed.

"In the reserve," she murmured, "in the reserve; that is easy to say.
But where is there any room? And this one needs a lot." At last
Hermance, after having given a number of little taps to the right and
left, succeeded in making a sort of slit, into which I had great
difficulty in sliding. Hermance gave me and my neighbors some more
little taps to lump us together, and then shut the door. Darkness
reigned. I was placed between a blue velvet dress and a mauve satin one.

Towards the end of April we received a visit from the little baroness,
and in consequence of that visit there was great disturbance. Winter
dresses were hung up; spring dresses were got down. At the beginning of
July another visit, another disturbance--entry of the costumes from the
races; departure of others for the watering-places. I lost my neighbor
to the right, the mauve dress, and kept my neighbor on the left, the
blue dress, a cross and crabbed person who was forever groaning,
complaining, and saying to me, "Oh, my dear, you do