hat his friend, the bald-headed
gentleman, would take his place. And then only, my dear Louise, did we
learn that our benefactor was--guess what--a prince! A prince, do I say?
Bless you, ever so much higher than that! A royal highness!--a reigning
duke!--a sort of a second-rate king! Germain explained all about his
rank to me!"

"M. Rodolph a prince!--a duke!--almost a king!"

"Just think of that, Louise! And imagine my having asked him to help me
to clean my room! A pretty state of confusion it threw me into when I
recollected all that, and how free I had spoken to him! So of course you
know when I found that he was as good as a king, I did not dare refuse
his gracious wedding present.

"Well, my dear, when we had been married about a week, M. Rodolph sent
us word that he should be glad if Germain, his mother, and myself would
pay him a wedding visit; so we did. I can tell you my heart beat as
though it would come through my side! Well, we stopped at a fine palace
in the Rue Plumet, and were ushered into a number of splendid
apartments, filled with servants in liveries, all covered with gold
lace, gentlemen in black, with silver chains around their necks and
swords by their sides, officers in rich uniforms, and all sorts of gay
looking people. The rooms we passed through were all gilt, and filled
with such beautiful things they quite dazzled my eyesight only to look
at them.

"At last we got to the apartment where the bald-headed old gentleman was
sitting, with a quantity of grand folks, all covered with gold lace and
embroidery. Well, when our elderly friend saw us, he rose and conducted
us to an adjoining room, where we found M. Rodolph--I mean the
prince--dressed so simply, and looking so good and kind--just like the
M. Rodolph we first knew--that I did not feel at all frightened at the
recollection of how I had set him to pin my shawl for me, mend my pens,
and walked with him arm in arm in the street, just like two equals, as,
certainly, then I thought we were."

"Oh, I should have trembled like a leaf if I had been you!"

"Well, I did not mind it at all, he smiled so encouragingly; and, after
kindly welcoming Madame Georges, he held out his hand to Germain, and
then said, smilingly, to me, 'Well, neighbour, and how are "Papa Cretu"
and "Ramonette?"' (Those were the names I called my birds by. Was it not
kind of him to recollect them?)

"'I feel quite sure,' added he, 'that yourself and Germain can sing as