me
that at dinner, presently, I should see his grandmother, but that I was
to take no notice of what she said, as she was sometimes a little out
of her mind. Then he drew me aside into a pretty arbour and whispered,
blushing:

"'I have written some verses about Tiphaine Raguel. I'll repeat them to
you some other time. You'll see, you'll see.'

"The dinner-bell rang and we went into the dining-room. M. Le Mansel
came in with at basket full of eggs.

"'Eighteen this morning,' he said, and his voice sounded like a cluck.

"A most delicious omelette was served. I was seated between Madame Le
Mansel, who was moaning under her crown, and her mother, an old Normandy
woman with round cheeks, who, having lost all her teeth, smiled with her
eyes. She seemed very attractive to me. While we were eating roast-duck
and chicken _a la creme_ the good lady told us some very amusing
stories, and, in spite of what her grandson had said, I did not observe
that her mind was in the slightest degree affected. On the contrary, she
seemed to be the life of the house.

"After dinner we adjourned to a little sitting-room whose walnut
furniture was covered with yellow Utrecht velvet. An ornamental clock
between two candelabra decorated the mantelpiece, and on the top of its
black plinth, and protected and covered by a glass globe, was a red egg.
I do not know why, once having observed it, I should have examined it so
attentively. Children have such unaccountable curiosity. However, I must
say that the egg was of a most wonderful and magnificent colour. It had
no resemblance whatever to those Easter eggs dyed in the juice of
the beetroot, so much admired by the urchins who stare in at the
fruit-shops. It was of the colour of royal purple. And with the
indiscretion of my age I could not resist saying as much.

"M. Le Mansel's reply was a kind of crow which expressed his admiration.

"'That egg, young sir,' he added, 'has not been dyed as you seem to
think. It was laid by a Cingalese hen in my poultry-yard just as you see
it there. It is a phenomenal egg.'

"'You must not forget to say,' Madame Le Mansel added in a plaintive
voice, 'that this egg was laid the very day our Alexandre was born.'

"'That's a fact,' M. Le Mansel assented.

"In the meantime the old grandmother looked at me with sarcastic eyes,
and pressed her loose lips together and made a sign that I was not to
believe what I heard.

"'Humph!' she whispered, 'chickens often