The Pension Beaurepas

nce from me, and it was not until the pensionnaires had dispersed, and some of them, according to

tanding with her mother, in one of the paths, looking about with no great complacency, as I imagined, at the homely characteristics of the place, and old M. Pigeonn

Miss Sophy was a girl of one-and-twenty, very small and very pretty-what I suppose would have been called a lively brune

pension?" inquired Mrs. Ruc

but it seems to me com

gh rank in Geneva?

ys a very fair fam

paring it to a New York boar

erent style," her

elbows with a pair of white little hands, and she

ry; we had heard so much about Swiss pensions. I was saying to Mr. Ruck that I wonder

thought everything of Madame Beaurepas," said

erhaps you have heard

pur

ad a great many America

ns," I

hink she would be, if she co

s comparing," ob

I never had a chance till now; I never knew my privileges. Gi

here," said Miss Sophy, with courage. And indeed I c

hat's what you like,"

ed herself to me, with

u feel quite

as got used to the lif

aid his wife. "It seems as if he

," the husband retorted,

restless," con

come to a pension. I though

used to you, after a

. I learned from this young lady that, with her parents, after visiting the British Islands, she had been spending a month in Paris, and that she thought sh

her window, I

ther had hard work, I can tell you. We hadn't half finis

insisted on

n air of keen resolution in Miss Ruck's pretty face, of lucid apprehension of desirable ends, which made me, as she pronounced these words, direct a glance of covert compassion toward her poor recalcitrant father. He had walked away a little with his wife, and I saw only his back and

great many things?

ngs till we go back. Of course that is the principal interest, for ladies. Mother said she should feel so shabby if she just passed through.

t are hi

sed to be so bright; but now he is quite subdued. It's about time he should improve, any way. We went out last night to look at the jewellers' windows-in that street behind th

an the jewellers' windows. We are very near s

go to the mountains every summer. We are familiar enough with the mountains. Aren't we, mother

t?" inquired t

miliar with t

pe so," sai

ds in his pockets, gav

much you can te

veying each other's garments. "Don't you want to go

better; we have got to

lace?" ask

eller's-to t

; they were too big!" And M

saw the blue cross,

ant of that blue cross?"

ack velvet ribbon and tie it

little gold chain, if you please-a little narrow gold chain, like an old-fashioned watch-chain. That's the proper thing for that blue cross.

father urged, "you don

want it." And Sophy glance

which one might stand to Miss Ruck; but I think I was conscious of a certain satisfa

other," sai

ittle," explained the elder lad

little, with a movement that displaced his hat. (I may remark in parenthesis that I never saw a hat more easily displaced than Mr. Ruck's.) I supposed he was going to say someth