n years led her a hard life, full of caprices and mad freaks that had attracted the attention of all Paris. On the highroad to fame, over which he had so triumpha

sively to you. He belongs much more to art, to his country, than to his family. And who knows if each of the faults you reproach him with has not given us some sublime creation?" At last, however, her patience was worn out, she rebelled, beca

er former affection, the first months of her widowhood acted on the young woman like a healthy calming water-cure. The enforced

cost her so many tears, and now grew day by day, like a magnificent flower nourished by the black earth of the tomb, she was to be seen draped in her long somber veils holding interviews with theatrical managers and publishers, busying h

sity about famous men, and the ingenuous enthusiasm of a still youthful artist. Thus when he met the wife of the great man, he was dazzled and bewildered. It was as tho the image of the glorious muse herself had appeared to him. He at once fell in love, and as the widow was beginning to receive a few friends, he had himself presented to her. There his passion grew in the atmosphere of genius that still

r artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed very much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of a broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman whose life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in

nding marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had written to her when he was courting her. This return toward the past rejuvenated her so

ost in the gigantic shadow he cast around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the box, she displayed herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first husband's halo of glory

her shoulder, of calling him "my poor dear friend," of casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the reception, with an air of saying: "You are only fit for that." Around her gathered a circle of former friends, those who had been spectators of the brilliant débuts of the great man, of his struggles, and his success. She simpered to them; played the young girl! They had known her when so young! Nearly all of them called her by her Christi

f nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. "I can not help it," she said, "I have never

f his wife, deeply touched and affected, shaking hands all round, and accepting, he too, his share of sympathy.

TNO

' Wives." Translat