o throw off all control. She told of her
sudden departure from Fresne, where she might have found so safe a
refuge with her friend and cousin. Then had not her own imprudence and
coquetry led to a rupture with the families of d'Etaples and Ray? She
told of the scandalous intimacy with Madame Strahlberg; of her expulsion
from the convent, where they had discovered, even before she left, that
she had been in the habit of visiting undesirable persons; and finally
she informed him that Jacqueline had gone to Italy with an old Yankee
and his daughter--he being a man, it was said, who had laid the
foundation of his colossal fortune by keeping a bar-room in a mining
camp in California. This last was no fiction, the cut of Mr. Sparks's
beard and his unpolished manners left no doubt on the subject; and she
wound up by saying that Madame d'Avrigny, whom no one could accuse
of ill-nature, had been grieved at meeting this unhappy girl in very
improper company, among which she seemed quite in her element, like a
fish in water. It was said also that she was thinking of studying for
the stage with La Rochette--M. de Talbrun had heard it talked about in
the foyer of the Opera by an old Prince from some foreign country--she
could not remember his name, but he was praising Madame Strahlberg
without any reserve as the most delightful of Parisiennes. Thereupon
Talbrun had naturally forbidden his wife to have anything to do with
Jacqueline, or even to write to her. Fat Oscar, though he was not all
that he ought to be himself, had some very strict notions of propriety.
No one was more particular about family relations, and really in this
case no one could blame him; but Giselle had been very unhappy, and to
the very last had tried to stand up for her unhappy friend. Having told
him all this, she added, she would say no more on the subject.

Giselle was a model woman in everything, in tact, in goodness, in good
sense, and she was very attentive to the poor old mother of Fred, who
but for her must have died long ago of loneliness and sorrow. Thereupon
ensued the poor lady's usual lamentations over the long, long absence
of her beloved son; as usual, she told him she did not think she should
live to see him back again; she gave him a full account of her maladies,
caused, or at least aggravated, by her mortal, constant, incurable
sorrow; and she told how Giselle had been nursing her with all the
patience and devotion of a Sister of Charity. Throu