m.

'Monsieur Astier!'

'Yes, Duchess.'

'See yonder, among the reeds. It looks like Vedrine.'

Vedrine it was, painting away, with his wife and children at his side,
on an old flat-bottomed boat moored to a willow branch alongside of a
green islet, where the wagtails were chirping themselves hoarse. The
boats drew quickly up beside him, any novelty being a break to the
everlasting tedium of fashionable society: and while the Duchess greeted
with her sweetest smile Madame Vedrine, who had once been her guest at
Mousseaux, the ladies looked with interest at the artist's strange home
and the beautiful children, born of its light and its love, as they lay
in the shelter of their green refuge on the clear, placid stream, which
reflected the picture of their happiness. After the first greetings,
Vedrine, palette in hand, gave Paul an account of the doings at Clos
Jallanges, which was visible through the mists of the river, half-way
up the hill side--a long low white house with an Italian roof. 'My dear
fellow, they have all gone crazy there! The vacancy has turned their
heads. They spend their days ticking votes--your mother, Picheral, and
the poor invalid in her wheelchair. She too has caught the Academic
fever, and talks of moving to Paris, entertaining and giving parties to
help her brother on.' So Vedrine, to escape the general madness, camped
out all day and worked in the open air--children and all; and pointing
to his old boat he said, with a simple unresentful laugh, 'My dahabeeah,
you see; my trip to the Nile.'

All at once the little boy, who in the midst of so many people, so many
pretty ladies and pretty dresses, had eyes for no one but old Laniboire,
addressed him in a clear voice, 'Please, are you the gentleman of the
Academie who is going to be a hundred?' The philosopher, occupied in
showing off his boating for the benefit of the fair Antonia, was all
but knocked off his seat: and when the peals of laughter had somewhat
subsided, Vedrine explained that the child was strangely interested in
Jean Rehu, whom he did not know and had never seen, merely because he
was nearly a hundred years old. Every day the handsome little boy asked
about the old man and inquired how he was. Child as he was, he admired
such length of days with something of a personal regard. If others had
lived to a hundred, why not he?

But a sudden freshening of the breeze filled the sails of the little
craft, and fluttered all the tiny p