the sea, there comes to the man with the gun a sane
exhilaration--he is alive.

On calm nights the air is pungent and warm with the perfume of tons of
apples lying heaped in the orchards, ready for the cider-making, nights,
when the owls hoot dismally under a silver moon.

When the wind veers to the north it grows cold. On such nights as these
"the Essence of Selfishness" seeks my fireside.

She is better fed than many other children in the lost village beyond my
wall. And spoiled!--_mon Dieu!_ She is getting to be hopeless.

Ah, you queen of studied cruelty and indifference! You, with your nose
of coral pink, your velvet ears that twitch in your dreams, and your
blue-white breast! You, who since yesterday morning have gnawed to death
two helpless little birds in my hedge which you still think I have not
discovered! And yet I still continue to feed you by hand piecemeal since
you disdain to dine from my best china, and Suzette takes care of you
like a nurse.

_Eh bien!_ Some day, do you hear, I shall sell you to the rabbit-skin
man, who has a hook for a hand, and the rest of you will find its way to
some cheap table d'hote, where you will pass as ragout of rabbit Henri
IV. under a thick sauce. What would you do, I should like to know, if
you were the vagabond cat who lives back in the orchard, and whose four
children sleep in the hollow trunk of the tree and are content with what
their mother brings them, whether it be plain mole or the best of
grasshopper. Eh, mademoiselle? Open those topaz eyes of yours--Suzette
is coming to put you to bed.

The trim little maid entered, crossed noiselessly in the firelight to my
chair, and, laying a sealed note from my friend the Baron beneath the
lamp, picked up the sleepy cat and carried her off to her room.

The note was a delightful surprise.

"_Cher monsieur_: Will you make me the pleasure and the honour to come
and do the _ouverture_ of the hunt at my chateau to-morrow, Sunday--my
auto will call for you about six of the morning. We will be about ten
guns, and I count on the amiability of my partridges and my hares to
make you pass a beautiful and good day. Will you accept, dear sir, the
assurance of my sentiments the most distinguished?"

It was nice of the Baron to think of me, for I had made his acquaintance
but recently at one of Tanrade's dinners, during which, I recall, the
Baron declared to me as he lifted his left eyebrow over his cognac, that
the hunt--_la cha