ors il nous ecrivait
des lettres, mais des lettres, comme on n'en ecrit plus. En voila deux
qu'il m'a ecrites lorsque j'etais tres jeune fille." Whereupon she
showed me what were really two charming gossiping little essays on the
art of punctuation. It appears that the little lady was either very
indifferent to, or ignorant of the art; and the father wrote, "My dear
Henriette, I am afraid I shall still have to take you to task with
regard to your punctuation: there is little or none of it in your
letters. All punctuation, commas or other signs, mark a period of repose
for the mind--a stage more or less long--an idea which is done with or
momentarily suspended, and which is being divided by such a sign from
the next. You suppress those periods, those intervals; you write as the
stream flows, as the arrow flies. That will not do at all, because the
ideas one expresses, the things of which we speak, are not all
intimately connected with one another like drops of water."

The second letter showed that Mdlle. Guizot must have taken her revenge,
either very cleverly, or that she was past all redemption in the matter
of punctuation; and as the latter theory is scarcely admissible, knowing
what we do of her after-life, we must admit the former. The letter ran
as follows:

"MY DEAR HENRIETTE,

"I dare say you will find me very provoking, but let me beg of
you not to fling so many commas at my head. You are absolutely
pelting me with them, as the Romans pelted that poor Tarpeia with
their bucklers."

It reminds one of Marguerite Thuillier, who "created Mimi" in Muerger and
Barriere's "Vie de Boheme," when Muerger fell in love with her. "I can't
do with him," she said to his collaborateur, who pleaded for him,--"I
can't do with him; he is too badly dressed, he looks like a scarecrow."
Barriere advised his friend to go to a good tailor and have himself
rigged out in the latest fashion. The advice was acted upon; Barriere
waited anxiously for the effect of the transformation upon the lady's
heart. A fortnight elapsed, and poor Muerger was snubbed as usual.
Barriere interceded once more. "I can do less with him than before," was
the answer; "he is too well dressed, he looks like a tailor's dummy."

To return to M. Guizot, whom, in the course of the whole of our
acquaintance, I have only seen once "put out." It was when the fiat went
forth that his house was to come down to make room for the new Boulevard