each other their inmost thoughts. Leuillet
now loved his wife with a calm trustful affection; he loved her as a
tender, devoted partner, who is an equal and a confidante. But there
still lingered in his soul a singular and unaccountable grudge against
the deceased Souris, who had been the first to possess this woman, who
had had the flower of her youth and of her soul, and who had even
robbed her of her poetic attributes. The memory of the dead husband
spoiled the happiness of the living husband; and this posthumous
jealousy now began to torment Leuillet's heart day and night.

The result was that he was incessantly talking about Souris, asking a
thousand minute and intimate questions about him, and seeking for
information as to all his habits and personal characteristics. And he
pursued him with railleries even into the depths of the tomb,
recalling with self-satisfaction his oddities, emphasizing his
absurdities, and pointing out his defects.

Every minute he kept calling out to his wife from one end to the other
of the house:

"Hallo, Mathilde!"

"Here am I, dear."

"Come and let us have a chat."

She always came over to him, smiling, well aware that Souris was to be
the subject of the chat, and anxious to gratify her second husband's
harmless fad.

"I say! do you remember how Souris wanted, one day, to prove to me
that small men are always better loved than big men?"

And he launched out into reflections unfavorable to the defunct
husband, who was small, and discreetly complimentary to himself, as he
happened to be tall.

And Mme. Leuillet let him think that he was quite right; and she
laughed very heartily, turned the first husband into ridicule in a
playful fashion for the amusement of his successor, who always ended
by remarking:

"Never mind! Souris was a muff!"

They were happy, quite happy. And Leuillet never ceased to testify his
unabated attachment to his wife by all the usual manifestations.

Now, one night when they happened to be both kept awake by the renewal
of youthful ardor, Leuillet, who held his wife clasped tightly in his
arms, and had his lips glued to hers, said:

"Tell me this, darling."

"What?"

"Souris--'tisn't easy to put the question--was he very--very amorous?"

She gave him a warm kiss, as she murmured:

"Not so much as you, my duck."

His male vanity was flattered, and he went on:

"He must have been--rather a flat--eh?"

She did not answer. There was merely a