for she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with
a clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was
decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old
fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture
programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers.
As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested
on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence
of her former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I
used to be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant."

"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness
toward this charming girl."

"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you
look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she
has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at
Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from
behind as I kissed her forehead.

The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head
like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you
before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens."

Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping
all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it
graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I must bear my eternal
nickname. Was not the maid now present whose dower had been hatched
by those well-omened fowls? and was not the dower now coming to
use? Hohenfels paired off with the notary, and discussed with that
parchment person the music of Mozart, and, what would have been absurd