"One of the greatest virtues of women," said I pausing on the threshold,
"is fidelity."

"We are devoted to Mme. la Duchesse," said the girl.

"Another, hardly behind it, is discretion," I continued.

"Madame inculcates it on us daily," said she. I took out a napoleon.

"Ladies," said I, placing the napoleon in the girl's hand, "I am obliged
for your kind attentions. Good-night!" and I shut the door on the sound of
a pleased, excited giggling. I love to hear such sounds; they make me
laugh myself, for joy that this old world, in spite of everything, holds
so much merriment; and to their jovial lullaby I fell asleep,

Moreover--the duchess teaching discretion! There can have been nothing
like it since Baby Charles and Steenie conversed within the hearing of
King James! But, then discretion has two meanings--whereof the one is "Do
it not," and the other "Tell it not." Considering of this ambiguity, I
acquitted the duchess of hypocrisy.

At ten o'clock the next morning we got rid of my dear friend Gustave de
Berensac. Candor compels me to put the statement in that form; for the
gravity which had fallen upon him the night before endured till the
morning, and he did not flinch from administering something very like a
lecture to his hostess. His last words were an invitation to me to get
into the carriage and start with him. When I suavely declined, he told me
that I should regret it. It comforts me to think that his prophecy, though
more than once within an ace of the most ample fulfillment, yet in the end