been in the habit of visiting undesirable persons; and finally she
informed him that Jacqueline had gone to Italy with an old Yankee and his
daughter--he being a man, it was said, who had laid the foundation of his
colossal fortune by keeping a bar-room in a mining camp in California.
This last was no fiction, the cut of Mr. Sparks's beard and his
unpolished manners left no doubt on the subject; and she wound up by
saying that Madame d'Avrigny, whom no one could accuse of ill-nature,
had been grieved at meeting this unhappy girl in very improper company,
among which she seemed quite in her element, like a fish in water.
It was said also that she was thinking of studying for the stage with
La Rochette--M. de Talbrun had heard it talked about in the foyer of the
Opera by an old Prince from some foreign country--she could not remember
his name, but he was praising Madame Strahlberg without any reserve as
the most delightful of Parisiennes. Thereupon Talbrun had naturally
forbidden his wife to have anything to do with Jacqueline, or even to
write to her. Fat Oscar, though he was not all that he ought to be
himself, had some very strict notions of propriety. No one was more
particular about family relations, and really in this case no one could
blame him; but Giselle had been very unhappy, and to the very last had
tried to stand up for her unhappy friend. Having told him all this, she
added, she would say no more on the subject.

Giselle was a model woman in everything, in tact, in goodness, in good
sense, and she was very attentive to the poor old mother of Fred, who but
for her must have died long ago of loneliness and sorrow. Thereupon
ensued the poor lady's usual lamentations over the long, long absence of
her beloved son; as usual, she told him she did not think she should live
to see him back again; she gave him a full account of her maladies,
caused, or at least aggravated, by her mortal, constant, incurable
sorrow; and she told how Giselle had been nursing her with all the