still wearing that spencer of his!"
Madeleine came to tell the Presidente. "He really might tell me how he
manages to make it look the same for five-and-twenty years together."

Mme. Camusot de Marville, hearing a man's footstep in the little
drawing-room between the large drawing-room and her bedroom, looked at
her daughter and shrugged her shoulders.

"You always make these announcements so cleverly that you leave me no
time to think, Madeleine."

"Jean is out, madame, I was all alone; M. Pons rang the bell, I opened
the door; and as he is almost one of the family, I could not prevent
him from coming after me. There he is, taking off his spencer."

"Poor little puss!" said the Presidente, addressing her daughter, "we
are caught. We shall have to dine at home now.--Let us see," she
added, seeing that the "dear puss" wore a piteous face; "must we get
rid of him for good?"

"Oh! poor man!" cried Mlle. Camusot, "deprive him of one of his
dinners?"

Somebody coughed significantly in the next room by way of warning that
he could hear.

"Very well, let him come in!" said Mme. Camusot, looking at Madeleine
with another shrug.

"You are here so early, cousin, that you have come in upon us just as
mother was about to dress," said Cecile Camusot in a coaxing tone. But
Cousin Pons had caught sight of the Presidente's shrug, and felt so
cruelly hurt that he could not find a compliment, and contented
himself with the profound remark, "You are always charming, my little
cousin."

Then, turning to the mother, he continued with a bow:

"You will not take it amiss, I think, if I have come a little earlier
than usual, dear cousin; I have brought something for you; you once
did me the pleasure of asking me for it."

Poor Pons! Every time he addressed the President, the President's
wife, or Cecile as "cousin," he gave them excruciating annoyance. As
he spoke, he draw a long, narrow cherry-wood box, marvelously carved,
from his coat-pocket.

"Oh, did I?--I had forgotten," the lady answered drily.

It was a heartless speech, was it not? Did not those few words deny
all merit to the pains taken for her by the cousin whose one offence
lay in the fact that he was a poor relation?

"But it is very kind of you, cousin," she added. "How much to I owe
you for this little trifle?"

Pons quivered inwardly at the question. He had meant the trinket as a
return for his dinners.

"I thought that you would permit me to offer it you-