y thing before like
madame's soup and sauces. I wish she would take me in partnership for a
while, if only to teach me the recipes that will otherwise die with her.
What a restaurant we two could keep together!"

"You are too unsteady, Favraud, for my _maitre d'hotel_. Your mind is
too much engrossed by the bubbles of politics, you would spoil all my
materials, and realize the old proverb that 'the devil sends cooks.' But
go to work like a good fellow, and carve the dish before you; by that
time the soup will be removed. I have a fine fish, however, in reserve
(let me announce this at once), for my end of the table."

"Here are croquets too, as I live," said Duganne, lifting a cover before
him and peeping in, then returning it quietly to its place. "Are you a
fairy, madame?"

"Much more like a witch," she said, with gayety. "You young men, at
least, think every old, toothless gray-haired crone like me ready for
the stake, you know."

"Not when they make such steaks," said Dr. Durand, attacking the dish,
with its savory surroundings, before him.

"Ah! you make calembourgs, my good doctor.--What do you call them,
Favraud? It is one of the few English words I do not know--or forget. I
believe, to make them, however, is a medical peculiarity."

"Puns, madame, puns, not pills. Don't forget it now. It is time you were
beginning to master our language. You know you are almost grown up!" and
Favraud looked at her saucily.

"A language which madame speaks more perfectly than any foreigner I have
ever known," I remarked. She bowed in answer, well pleased.

In truth, the accent of Madame Grambeau was barely detectable, and her
phraseology was that of a well-translated book--correct, but not
idiomatic, and bearing about it the idiosyncrasy of the language from
which it was derived. She was evidently a person of culture and native
power of intellect combined, and her finely-moulded face, as well as
every gesture and tone, indicated superiority and character.

In that lonely wild, and beneath that lowly roof, there abode a spirit
able and worthy to lead the _coteries_ of the great, and to preside over
the councils of statesmen, and (to rise in climax) the drawing-room of
the _grande monde_. But it was her whim rather than her necessity to
tarry where she could alone be strictly independent, a _sine qua non_ of
her being.

The son she had led by the hand from Hew York to Georgia, and who,
standing by her side, distinctly r