wings to illustrate the text; these we addressed to the
different eccentric people in our neighborhood, and, with the aid of
a thread, we lowered them to the sidewalk at about the same time these
persons were in the habit of passing. . . .

Oh! how merrily we laughed as we composed these hodge-podges of style!
With no one else have I ever laughed so heartily as with Lucette,--and
we usually roared over things that no one except ourselves could
possibly have considered funny. Over and above the bond of little
brother and grown sister there was between us a sympathy springing from
our appreciation of the ridiculous, and our notions of what constituted
fun were in complete accord. She was the sprightliest person I ever
knew, and sometimes a single word would start us to laughing at our own
or our neighbors' expense, until our sides ached and we almost fell upon
the floor.

This part of my nature was not, I must confess, in harmony with the
gloomy reveries evoked by the pictures of the Book of Revelation, and
with my ascetic religious convictions. But I was already full of strange
contradictions.

Poor little Lucette or Lucon (Lucon was the masculine for Lucette, and
I used to call her "My dear Lucon"); poor little Lucette was also one of
my professors, but one who caused me neither fear nor disgust. Like "Mr.
Ratin" she also kept a book wherein she would inscribe "good" or "very
good," and I showed it to my parents every evening. Until now I have
neglected to say that it had been one of her amusements to teach me to
play upon the piano; she taught me by stealth so that I might
surprise my parents by playing for them, upon the occasion of a family
celebration, the "Little Swiss Boy" or the "Rocks of St. Malo." The
result was she had been requested to go on with lessons that had had
such a favorable beginning, and my musical education was entrusted to
her until it came time for me to play the music of Chopin and Liszt.

Painting and music were the only things I worked at industriously and
faithfully.

My sister taught me painting; I do not, however, remember when I
commenced it, but it must have been very early in my life; it seems to
me that there was never a time when I was not able, with my pencil or my
brush, to express in some measure the odd fancies of my imaginations.

CHAPTER XXIX.

In my grandmother's room, at the bottom of the cupboard where she kept
"The History of the Bible," with the terrible p