ever, I have enough of being
bored on the ministers' bench; here I may play.--How do, la Chevre!
--Good morning, little kid," and he took his daughter round the neck,
kissed her, and made her sit on his knee, resting her head on his
shoulder, that he might feel her soft golden hair against his cheek.

"He is tired and worried," said his wife to herself. "I shall only
worry him more.--I will wait.--Are you going to be at home this
evening?" she asked him.

"No, children. After dinner I must go out. If it had not been the day
when Lisbeth and the children and my brother come to dinner, you would
not have seen me at all."

The Baroness took up the newspaper, looked down the list of theatres,
and laid it down again when she had seen that Robert _le Diable_ was
to be given at the Opera. Josepha, who had left the Italian Opera six
months since for the French Opera, was to take the part of Alice.

This little pantomime did not escape the Baron, who looked hard at his
wife. Adeline cast down her eyes and went out into the garden; her
husband followed her.

"Come, what is it, Adeline?" said he, putting his arm round her waist
and pressing her to his side. "Do not you know that I love you more
than----"

"More than Jenny Cadine or Josepha!" said she, boldly interrupting
him.

"Who put that into your head?" exclaimed the Baron, releasing his
wife, and starting back a step or two.

"I got an anonymous letter, which I burnt at once, in which I was
told, my dear, that the reason Hortense's marriage was broken off was
the poverty of our circumstances. Your wife, my dear Hector, would
never have said a word; she knew of your connection with Jenny Cadine,
and did she ever complain?--But as the mother of Hortense, I am bound
to speak the truth."

Hulot, after a short silence, which was terrible to his wife, whose
heart beat loud enough to be heard, opened his arms, clasped her to
his heart, kissed her forehead, and said with the vehemence of
enthusiasm:

"Adeline, you are an angel, and I am a wretch----"

"No, no," cried the Baroness, hastily laying her hand upon his lips to
hinder him from speaking evil of himself.

"Yes, for I have not at this moment a sou to give to Hortense, and I
am most unhappy. But since you open your heart to me, I may pour into
it the trouble that is crushing me.--Your Uncle Fischer is in
difficulties, and it is I who dragged him there, for he has accepted
bills for me to the amount of twenty-fi