The Pension Beaurepas

, for the tone of his conversation was not cheerful, tending as it did almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over the financial prostration of our common country. "No, sir

of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for it as' a morbid form of activity. "You'll kill yourself, if you don't look out," he said, "walking all over the country. I don't want to walk round that way; I ain't a postman!" Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources. His wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was to be supposed, were possessed of a good many that could not be apparent to an unobtrusive young man. They also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with folded hands, contemplating material objects, and were remarkably independent of most of the usual feminine aids to idleness-light literat

supreme," he said to me. "One is surprised to fin

or economy," I answere

said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. "Perhaps it's for

me on account of Mr. Ruck-beca

ck is preserved in perfection-a miraculous fraicheur. I like those large, fair, quiet women; they are ofte

doubt it

er cold? Ne vo

in which I have

ever have anything at stake! But the little one, for exampl

very p

ton! When you pay compliments to Mademoisell

mpliments to Ma

. Pigeonneau, "you youn

But I should have gone quite wrong; Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with her new pensionnaires. "I have no observation whatever to make about them," she said to me one evening. "I see nothing in those ladies which is at all deplace. The

ican?" I

ension Chamousset-my concurrent, you know, farther up the street; but she is coming away because the coffee is bad. She holds to her coffee, it appears. I don't know what liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but we will do the best we can for her. Only, I know she will make me des histoires about something else.

among her boxes, on the steps. She addressed her cabman in a very English accent, but with extreme precision and correctness. "I wish to be perfectly reasonable, but I don't wish to encourage you in exorbitant demands. With a franc and a half you are sufficiently paid. I

o, moi!" said the cabm

h I asked you to hold between your knees; you will please to go back to the other house and get it. Very well, if you are impolite I will make a complaint of you to-morrow at the adm

e, at the corridor, at Celestine tucking up her apron in the doorway, at me as I passed in amid the disseminated luggage; her mother's parsimonious attitude seeming to produce in Miss Aurora neither sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the two ladies were p

n the table? Then you will please to get some, and to remember to

over here. I should like to make that lady's acquaintance. Perhaps she knows what I want, too; it seems hard to find out. But

e disposition to listen to what Mr. Ruck might have to say, but her manner was equivalent to an intimation that what she valued least in boarding- house life was its social opportunities. She had placed herself near a lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it up, and she had opened in her lap, with the assistance of a large embroidered marker, an octavo volume, which I perceived to be in German. To Mrs. Ruck and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her economical attire and her expensive culture. The two younger ladies, however, had begun to fraternise very freely, and Miss Ruck presently went wandering out of the room with her

ncy of the occasion. Voyez I have selected a glass of syrup-a generous glass-for Mademoiselle Ruck, and I advise you, my young friend, if you wish to make a good impression,

the open window I saw the latter lady sitting under the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. R

hink we ought to leave for Appenzell to- morrow; she'd got it all fixed. She says this ain't a high enough lat-a high enough altitude. And she says I mustn't go too high either; that would be just as bad; she seems to know just

ed, in company with Miss Ruck, with whom she had bee

red paper lanterns, "are they trying t

rrival," the other young girl rejoined.

to suggest, "they have put out their lights; they

meanwhile, who had been awaiting his chance, advanced to Miss Ruck with his glass of syrup. "I h

on to take the glass. "Well, I guess it's sour," she sa

rned away. He looked about at the rest of us, as if to appeal from Miss R

me?" asked Miss Church

le siro

presented the glass with a very low bow. "I

was not strikingly pretty, but in her charming irregular face there was so

rica, and her mother wo

laining her comp

for America," I a

g against your mother, but I think

d reasons; she will

Ruck. "You have got a right to go to your own countr

patriotic," said Au

declared. "I have heard that there are some

rts of Americans,

ined Miss Ruck, who had apparently bec

riotic?" I asked

sick," said Miss Sophy

mother would h

ng to take me

er heard of anything s

ike something

anything very dreadful

are a good American," she replied, "and I never supposed y

y nice, isn't it?" I a

happen to prefer New Y

New York. Tell him yo

make him angry

o make him angry,"

do that," I rejoined. "Have yo

way

icked!" Miss S

lace," I continued. "I fin

h. "I was saying that you wa

to pass for

ll, you had better not come home," s

ese countries?" I as

ope when I was a small

le, and it see

again. It's just too l

st country in th

" she said. "If there's a creature I despise it's a ma

n be tired of Europe?"

-after ma

f it after three we

e with a charming intentness, as if she had a purpose in speaking.

ted," said Miss Ruck. "S

y sure that I

cried Miss Sophy. "They s

said Aurora, sti

Europe," I asked-"in all

ension. Mamma is devoted to pensions. We have lived,

you had seen about e

ing souvenirs! There is a pension awaiting us now at Dresden,-eight francs a day, without wine. That's rather dear. Mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma is a grea

bserved Miss Ruck, glancing through the wind

the native society. Though she li

em, then?" asked Miss So

s the way I passed my jeunesse-my belle jeunesse. We are frightfully poor," the young girl went on, with the same strange frankness-a curious mixture of girl

s Ruck remarked, in a consolatory manner. "I can tell an

n toilette," said Aurora, looking

as cut in France; a

ith a laugh, "my dres

anc

vely figure, any way,"

k would not have said that. "I try to be like an American girl," she continued; "I do my best, though mamma doesn't at all encourage it. I am very patriotic. I try to copy them, though mamma has brought me up a la francaise; that is, as much as one can in

comical in her despondency. But she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the American tone. Whatever her

garden again, and I enjoyed their society u