which interrupt your progress."

"Do you call Madame d'Etaples's 'bal blanc' a folly?"

"You certainly will not go to it--that is settled," said the young
stepmother, dryly.




CHAPTER V

SURPRISES

In all other ways Madame de Nailles did her best to assist in the success
of the surprise. On the second of June, the eve of Ste.-Clotilde's day,
she went out, leaving every opportunity for the grand plot to mature.
Had she not absented herself in like manner the year before at the same
date--thus enabling an upholsterer to drape artistically her little salon
with beautiful thick silk tapestries which had just been imported from
the East? Her idea was that this year she might find a certain lacquered
screen which she coveted. The Baroness belonged to her period; she liked
Japanese things. But, alas! the charming object that awaited her, with
a curtain hung over it to prolong the suspense, had nothing Japanese
about it whatever. Madame de Nailles received the good wishes of her
family, responded to them with all proper cordiality, and then was
dragged up joyously to a picture hanging on the wall of her room, but
still concealed under the cloth that covered it.

"How good of you!" she said, with all confidence to her husband.