mischievous; finally, two Parisians, who have come to take leave of
the Consul's wife at a splendid dinner, and you will have the picture
presented by the terrace of the villa about the middle of May--a
picture in which the predominant figure was that of a celebrated
woman, on whom all eyes centered now and again, the heroine of this
improvised festival.

One of the two Frenchmen was the famous landscape painter, Leon de
Lora; the other a well known critic Claude Vignon. They had both come
with this lady, one of the glories of the fair sex, Mademoiselle des
Touches, known in the literary world by the name of Camille Maupin.

Mademoiselle des Touches had been to Florence on business. With the
charming kindness of which she is prodigal, she had brought with her
Leon de Lora to show him Italy, and had gone on as far as Rome that he
might see the Campagna. She had come by Simplon, and was returning by
the Cornice road to Marseilles. She had stopped at Genoa, again on the
landscape painter's account. The Consul-General had, of course, wished
to do the honors of Genoa, before the arrival of the Court, to a woman
whose wealth, name, and position recommend her no less than her
talents. Camille Maupin, who knew her Genoa down to its smallest
chapels, had left her landscape painter to the care of the diplomate
and the two Genoese marquises, and was miserly of her minutes. Though
the ambassador was a distinguished man of letters, the celebrated lady
had refused to yield to his advances, dreading what the English call
an exhibition; but she had drawn in the claws of her refusals when it
was proposed that they should spend a farewell day at the Consul's
villa. Leon de Lora had told Camille that her presence at the villa
was the only return he could make to the Ambassador and his wife, the
two Genoese noblemen, the Consul and his wife. So Mademoiselle des