aters, and my little Westphalian peasant-girl found me where she
had left me.

"I declare!" she said to me, "so you come to confess at the opera? Give
him absolution, Morin, and give it to me, too. Now then, come along to
the greenroom."

She took my arm, and we went off together, while the excellent Morin,
with gravity and dignity beneath his sacred ornaments, withstood the
shock of this avalanche of dancers.

THE CIRCUS CHARGER

After George had related how he had been married off at twenty-two by
his aunt, the Baroness de Stilb, Paul said: "_I_ was married off by a
circus charger. I was very nearly forty years of age, and I felt so
peacefully settled in my little bachelor habits that, in the best faith
in the world, on all occasions, I swore by the gods never to run the
great risk of marriage; but I reckoned without the circus charger.

"It was in the last days of September, 1864. I had just arrived from
Baden-Baden, and my intention was to spend only twenty-four hours in
Paris. I had invited four or five of my friends--Callieres, Bernheim,
Frondeville, and Valreas--to my place in Poitou for the shooting season.
They were to come in the first part of October, and it needed a week to
put all in order at Roche-Targe. A letter from my overseer awaited me in
Paris, and the letter brought disastrous news; the dogs were well, but
out of the dozen hunting horses that I had there, five, during my
sojourn at Baden, had fallen sick or lame, and I found myself
absolutely forced to get new horses.

"I made a tour of the Champs-Elysees sellers, who showed me as hunters a
fine collection of broken--down skeletons. Average price, three thousand
francs. Roulette had treated me badly of late, and I was neither in the
humor, nor had I the funds, to spend in that way seven or eight hundred
louis in a morning.

"It was a Wednesday, and Cheri was holding his first autumn sale. I went
to the Rue de Ponthieu during the day; and there out of the lot, on
chance, without inquiry, blindly, by good-luck, and from the mere
declarations of the catalogue--'_Excellent hunter, good jumper, has
hunted with lady rider_,' etc.--I bought eight horses, which only cost
me five thousand francs. Out of eight, I said to myself, there will
always be four or five who will go, and who will be good enough to serve
as remounts.

"Among the horses there was one that I had bought, I must confess,
particularly on account of his coat, which was beau