s-d'oeuvres.

Another good fellow is the marquis--tall, with the air of a diplomat,
the simplicity of a child, and the manners of a prince. Another good
friend, too, is the marquise. They had come on foot, these near-by
neighbours, with their lantern. Was there ever such a marquise? This
once famous actress, who interpreted the comedies of Moliere. Was there
ever a more charming grandmother? Ah! You do not look it even now with
your gray hair, for you are ever young and witty and gracious. She
clapped her hands as she peered across the dinner-table to the row
before the chimney.

"My Burgundy, I see!" she exclaimed, to my surprise; Tanrade was gazing
intently at a sketch. "Oh, you shall see," added the marquise seriously.
"You are not the only one, my friend, the gods have blessed. Did you not
send me a dozen bottles this morning, Monsieur Tanrade? Come, confess!"

He turned and shrugged his shoulders.

"Impossible! I cannot remember. I am so absent-minded, madame," and he
bent and kissed her hand.

"Where's Blondel?" cried Clamard, as he extracted a thin cigarette-case
from his waistcoat.

"He'll be here presently," I explained.

"It's a long drive for him," added the marquise, a ring of sympathy in
her voice. "Poor boy, he is working so hard now that he is editor of _La
Revue Normande_. Ah, those wretched politics!"

"He doesn't mind it," broke in Tanrade, "he has a skin like a
bear--driving night and day all over the country as he does. What
energy, _mon Dieu_!"

"Oh!" cried Madame de Breville, "Blondel shall sing for us 'L'Histoire
de Madame X.' You shall cry with laughter."

"And 'Le Brigadier de Tours,'" added Tanrade.

The sound of hoofs and the rattle of a dog-cart beyond the wall sent us
hurrying to the courtyard.

"_Eh, voila!_" shouted Tanrade. "There he is, that good Blondel!"

"Suzette!" I cried as I passed the kitchen. "The vermouth!"

"_Bien_, monsieur."

"Eh, Blondel, there is nothing to eat, you late vagabond!"

A black mare steaming from her hot pace of twelve miles, drawing a
red-wheeled dog-cart, entered the courtyard.

"A thousand pardons," came a voice out of a bearskin coat, "my editorial
had to go to press early, or I should have been here half an hour ago."

Then such a greeting and a general rush to unharness the tired mare, the
marquis tugging at one trace and I at the other, while Tanrade backed
the cart under the shed next to the cider-press, Alice de Breville and
the