As may be imagined, this invitation had not to be repeated, for a pretty
woman looks better in bed than anywhere else. I found Mdlle. X. C. V.
sitting up in bed writing, but she stopped as soon as she saw me.

"How is this, sweet lie-a-bed, not up yet?"

"Yes, I am staying in bed partly because I feel lazy, and partly because
I am freer here."

"I was afraid you were not quite well."

"Nor am I. However, we will say no more about that now. I am just going
to take some soup, as those who foolishly establish the institution of
fasting were not polite enough to ask my opinion on the subject. It does
not agree with my health, and I don't like it, so I am not going to get
up even to sit at table, though I shall thus deprive myself of your
society."

I naturally told her that in her absence dinner would have no savour; and
I spoke the truth.

As the presence of her sister did not disturb us, she took out of her
pocket-book an epistle in verse which I had addressed to her when her
mother had forbidden me the house. "This fatal letter," said she, "which
you called 'The Phoenix,' has shaped my life and may prove the cause of
my death."

I had called it the Phoenix because, after bewailing my unhappy lot, I
proceeded to predict how she would afterwards give her heart to a mortal