y Juliette's caresses,
and pronounced her to be a perfect angel of kindness.

Sometimes, to Madame Deberle's intense delight, a visitor would drop
in. Since Easter she had ceased receiving on Saturdays, as was usual
at this time of the year. But she dreaded solitude, and a casual
unceremonious visit paid her in her garden gave her the greatest
pleasure. She was now busily engaged in settling on the watering-place
where she would spend her holiday in August. To every visitor she
retailed the same talk; discoursed on the fact that her husband would
not accompany her to the seaside; and then poured forth a flood of
questions, as she could not make up her mind where to go. She did not
ask for herself, however; no, it was all on Lucien's account. When the
foppish youth Malignon came he seated himself astride a rustic chair.
He, indeed, loathed the country; one must be mad, he would declare, to
exile oneself from Paris with the idea of catching influenza beside
the sea. However, he took part in the discussions on the merits of the
various watering-places, all of which were horrid, said he; apart from
Trouville there was not a place worthy of any consideration whatever.
Day after day Helene listened to the same talk, yet without feeling
wearied; indeed, she even derived pleasure from this monotony, which
lulled her into dreaming of one thing only. The last day of the month
came, and still Madame Deberle had not decided where to go.

As Helene was leaving one evening, her friend said to her: "I must go
out to-morrow; but that needn't prevent you from coming down here.
Wait for me; I shan't be back late."

Helene consented; and, alone in the garden, there spent a delicious
afternoon. Nothing stirred, save the sparrows fluttering in the trees
overhead. This little sunny nook entranced her, and, from that day,
her happiest afternoons were those on which her friend left her alone.

A closer intimacy was springing up between the Deberles and herself.
She dined with them like a friend who is pressed to stay when the
family sits down to table; when she lingered under the elm-trees and
Pierre came down to announce dinner, Juliette would implore her to
remain, and she sometimes yielded. They were family dinners, enlivened
by the noisy pranks of the children. Doctor Deberle and Helene seemed
good friends, whose sensible and somewhat reserved natures sympathized
well. Thus it was that Juliette frequently declared: "Oh, you two
would g