t he might have been heard at the Louvre.
Attached to the gray worsted stocking which covered his fleshless calf
was a fluffy black hairy ball, with one little red eye glancing up, and
the gleam of two white teeth where it held its grip. At the shrieks,
the young stranger, who had gone out to his horse, came rushing back,
and plucking the creature off, he slapped it twice across the snout, and
plunged it head-foremost back into the leather bag from which it had
emerged.

"It is nothing," said he, speaking in excellent French; "it is only a
bear."

"Ah, my God!" cried Pierre, wiping the drops from his brow. "Ah, it has
aged me five years! I was at the door, bowing to monsieur, and in a
moment it had me from behind."

"It was my fault for leaving the bag loose. The creature was but pupped
the day we left New York, six weeks come Tuesday. Do I speak with my
father's friend, Monsieur Catinat?"

"No, monsieur," said the guardsman, from the staircase. "My uncle is
out, but I am Captain de Catinat, at your service, and here is
Mademoiselle Catinat, who is your hostess."

The stranger ascended the stair, and paid his greetings to them both
with the air of a man who was as shy as a wild deer, and yet who had
steeled himself to carry a thing through. He walked with them to the
sitting-room, and then in an instant was gone again, and they heard his
feet thudding upon the stairs. Presently he was back, with a lovely
glossy skin in his hands. "The bear is for your father, mademoiselle,"
said he. "This little skin I have brought from America for you. It is
but a trifle, and yet it may serve to make a pair of mocassins or a
pouch."

Adele gave a cry of delight as her hands sank into the depths of its
softness. She might well admire it, for no king in the world could have
had a finer skin. "Ah, it is beautiful, monsieur," she cried; "and what
creature is it? and where did it come from?"

"It is a black fox. I shot it myself last fall up near the Iroquois
villages at Lake Oneida."

She pressed it to her cheek, her white face showing up like marble
against its absolute blackness. "I am sorry my father is not here to
welcome you, monsieur," she said; "but I do so very heartily in his
place. Your room is above. Pierre will show you to it, if you wish."

"My room? For what?"

"Why, monsieur, to sleep in!"

"And must I sleep in a room?"

De Catinat laughed at the gloomy face of the American.

"You shall not