I am not sorry that I know
how to dress in their style, and I have some genuine Rhenish jewelry,
which become me very well."

"I see that madame has indeed not altered," remarked Hedwig, plentifully
adorned with smiles, as the sunshine streamed into the grave apartment.
"You have fresh projects of captivating the men!" Cesarine smiled also,
and nodded several times.

"Here?" cried the girl, in surprise.

"Certainly here, since I understand you are receiving company in
shoals."

"That is all over now, madame, and I am sorry, for the callers were very
generous to me. It appears that the War Ministry do not approve of
strangers running about Montmorency and into the abode of the great
inventor of ordinances--"

"Ordnance, child," corrected Madame Clemenceau.

"And the house is sealed up, as you found it, against all comers. We
have nobody here for you to try graces upon except Mademoiselle
Rebecca's papa--and he being a Jew, you must not go near him, fresh from
the confessional."

Madame Clemenceau seemed to be musing.

"I forgot--there's young M. Antonino," continued the servant.

Cesarine made a contemptuous gesture, expressive of the conquest being
too easy.

"Such sallow youth are best left to platonic love, it's more proper,
and to them, quite as entertaining."

"Well, madame," said Hedwig, like a cheap Jack, holding up the last of
his stock, "they are the only men I can offer you; for, since we have
been firing off guns and cannon, our neighbors have moved away right and
left--we are so lonely. No servant would stay a week!"

"Those the only men?" said the returned fugitive; "Hedwig, this is not
polite for your master."

"Oh, madame, a husband never counts."

"You are very much mistaken. He does _count_--his money, I suppose, if
that is his cash-box." And, yielding to her girlish curiosity, she went
over to the steel-plated chest and avariciously contemplated it,

"Not at all, madame. That is where they lock up the writings and
drawings about the new gun!"

"Oh, what do they say?"

"Nothing a Christian can make head or tail of," returned the servant
reservedly. "They write now in a hand no honest folk ever used. An old
man who ought to have known better--the Jew--he taught the master, and
they call it siphon--"

"Cipher, I suppose? It appears the newspapers are right!" resumed the
lady. "He is a great man!" and she clapped her hands.

Hedwig regarded her puzzled, till her brow unwrinkling a