down, Monsieur,
please!"

She entreated so gently, with such an uneasy air at the threatened
departure of this man who had doubtless brought some good news for her
husband, that the Prince mechanically obeyed, thinking again that there
was evidently some mistake, and that it was not, it could not be, here
that Jacquemin lived.

"Is it really your husband, Madame, who writes under the signature of
Puck in 'L'Actualite'?" he asked. The same proud smile appeared again
upon her thin, wan face.

"Yes, Monsieur, yes, it is really he!" she replied. She was so happy
whenever any one spoke to her of her Paul. She was in the habit of
taking copies of L'Actualite to the concierge, the grocer, and the
butcher; and she was so proud to show how well Paul wrote, and what fine
connections he had--her Paul, whom she loved so much, and for whom she
sat up late at night when it was necessary to prepare his linen for some
great dinner or supper he was invited to.

"Oh! it is indeed he, Monsieur," she said again, while Zilah watched her
and listened in silence. "I don't like to have him use pseudonyms, as he
calls them. It gives me so much pleasure to see his real name, which is
mine too, printed in full. Only it seems that it is better sometimes.
Puck makes people curious, and they say, Who can it be? He also signed
himself Gavroche in the Rabelais, you know, which did not last very
long. You are perhaps a journalist also, Monsieur?"

"No," said Zilah.

"Ah! I thought you were! But, after all, perhaps you are right. It is a
hard profession, I sometimes think. You have to be out so late. If you
only knew, Monsieur, how poor Paul is forced to work even at night! It
tires him so, and then it costs so much. I beg your pardon for leaving
those gloves like that before you. I was cleaning them. He does not like
cleaned gloves, though; he says it always shows. Well, I am a woman,
and I don't notice it. And then I take so much care of all that. It is
necessary, and everything costs so dear. You see I--Gustave, don't slap
your little sister! you naughty boy!"

And going to the children, her sweet, frank eyes becoming sad at a
quarrel between her little ones, she gently took the baby away from the
oldest child, who cried, and went into a corner to pout, regarding his
mother with the same impudent air which Zilah had perceived in the curl
of Jacquemin's lips when the reporter complained of the dearth of pretty
women.

"It is certainly very