ility, and
seemed so pleased with me that she even asked me to stay to dinner. I
excused myself because of my regular habits and the simplicity of my
diet and took my leave. I was already in the vestibule when she called
after me:

"Well, now, is my costume sufficiently smart? How mad I shall make all
the other women at the Countess's ball!"

I was shocked at the remark. But having turned towards her I saw her
again, and again I fell under her spell.

She called me back.

"Monsieur Pigeonneau," she said, "you are such a dear man! Write me a
little story and I will love you ever and ever and ever so much!"

"I don't know how," I replied.

She shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed:

"What is the use of science if it can't help you to write a story! You
must write me a story, Monsieur Pigeonnneau."

Thinking it useless to repeat my absolute refusal I took my leave
without replying.

At the door I passed the man with the Assyrian beard, Dr. Daoud, whose
glance had so strangely affected me under the cupola of the Institute.

He struck me as being of the commonest class, and I found it very
disagreeable to meet him again.

The Countess N------'s ball took place about fifteen days after my
visit. I was not surprised to read in the newspaper that the beautiful
Miss Morgan had created a sensation in the costume of Neferu-Ra.

During the rest of the year 1886 I did not hear her mentioned again.
But on the first day of the New Year, as I was writing in my study, a
manservant brought me a letter and a basket.

"From Miss Morgan," he explained, and went away. I heard a mewing in the
basket which had been placed on my writing table, and when I opened it
out sprang a little grey cat.

It was not an Angora. It was a cat of some Oriental breed, much more
slender than ours, and with a striking resemblance, so far as I could
judge, to those of his race found in great numbers in the subterranean
tombs of Thebes, their mummies swathed in coarse mummy-wrappings. He
shook himself, gazed about, arched his back, yawned, and then rubbed
himself, purring, against the goddess Pasht, who stood on my table in
all her purity of form and her delicate, pointed face. Though his colour
was dark and his fur short, he was graceful, and he seemed intelligent
and quite tame. I could not imagine the reason for such a curious
present, nor did Miss Morgan's letter greatly enlighten me. It was as
follows:

"Dear Sir,

"I am sending you a lit