considerably exalted, and just touched
with rheumatism.

The soup was glacial, the roast was steaming, the conversation was
geographical. "Pray, M. Flemming," said my neighbor (he had been
stealing a look at the register of visitors' names), "can cattle be
wintered out of doors as far north as Pennsylvania, or only up to
Virginia?"

"Pray," said another, "is not New York situated between the North
River and the Hudson?"

The prayer of a third made itself audible: "Ought we to say
'Delightful _Wy_oming,' after Campbell, or Wy_o_ming?"

"We ought to eat with thankfulness the good things set before us," I
replied, with some presence of mind. "Excuse me, gentlemen," I added,
to carry off my vivacity, "but I think informing conversation is a
bore until after the nuts and raisins. A Danish proverb says that he
who knows what he is saying at a feast has but poor comprehension
of what he is eating. On my way hither, breakfasting at Strasburg, I
enjoyed a lesson in geography, and I aver that though the lesson was
elementary, I breakfasted very badly."

[Illustration: DELIGHTS OF THE VERLOBTEN.]

"Who was the teacher?" asked the explorer of Wyoming, a German, in the
tone of a man to whom no professor of Geography could properly be a
stranger.

"The teacher," I answered with a smile, "was one Fortnoye--"

I did not finish my sentence. At that name, Fortnoye, a kind of
electric movement was communicated around the board. Every eye sought
the face of Francine, who, troubled and confused, fell upon the cutlet
placed before her and cut it feverishly into flinders. Evidently there
was a secret thereabouts. When coffee was on, I applied myself to
satisfying the topographic doubts of my neighbors, but the name of the
geographical professor was approached no more.

When dinner was over, and only two stranded Belgians remained at
table, discussing whether the Falls of Niagara plunge from the United
States into Canada, or from Canada into the United States, I stole
into the narrow office, believing I should see Francine.

She was not there, but the register was lying on the desk. I fell to
turning the leaves over furiously: I felt that I was on the trail of
Fortnoye. I was not long in amassing a quantity of discoveries. Going
back to the previous year, I found the signature of Fortnoye in March
and April; in July and September, Fortnoye bound up and down the
Rhine; in the depth of the winter, Monsieur Tonson-Fortnoye come
agai