the young women. The old man who keeps the range, picks out for her
his best arrows tipped with white and red feathers,--and she takes aim
with a serious air. The mark is a circle, traced in the middle of a
picture on which is painted in flat gray tones, terrifying chimera
flying through the clouds.

Chrysanthème is certainly an adroit markswoman, and we admire her as
much as she expected.

Then Yves, who is usually clever at all games of skill, wishes to try
his luck, and fails. It is amusing to see her, with her mincing ways
and smiles, arrange with the tips of her little fingers, the sailor's
broad hands, placing them on the bow and the string in order to teach
him the proper manner. Never have they seemed to get on so well
together, Yves and my dolly, and I might even feel anxious, were I
less sure of my good brother, and if, moreover, it were not a matter
of perfect indifference to me.

* * * * *

In the stillness of the garden, mid the balmy peacefulness of these
mountains, a loud noise suddenly startles us; a unique, powerful,
terrible sound, which is prolonged in infinite metallic vibrations. It
begins again sounding more appalling: _Boum!_ borne to us by the
rising wind.

"_Nippon Kané!_" explains Chrysanthème,--and she again takes up her
brightly-feathered arrows. "_Nippon Kané_ (the Japanese brass); it is
the Japanese brass that is sounding!" It is the monstrous gong of a
monastery, situated in a suburb beneath us. Well, it is powerful