Madame Delphine

the Rue Toulouse, a lone figure with a cane, walking in meditation in the evening light under the willows of Canal Marigny, a long-darkened window re-lighted in the R

he impetuous youth, offered no enticements to Madame Delphine's banker. There is this to be said even for the pride his grandfather had taught him, that it had always held him above low indulgences; and though he had dalli

day we saw him there. "Ursin Lemaitre is dead. I

his lawyer brother

ed the little priest, "

ste s

en with that kind of face

him talk the other day about that newspaper paragraph. 'I have taken Ursin Lemaitre's head; I

xation, repeated it, on the banquettes and at the clubs; and presently it took the s

vial eccentricities of manner, and by the unaccounta

d lawyer, one day, "you are not r

onsieur Vignevielle. Ther

once," asked the attorney, at another time, w

ning," said the banker, with a gentle

tered Jean

who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or gate bu

ay), at those times the city's particular terror by night, never crossed

of one of those contemplative, uncompanioned walks which it was his habit to take, came slowly along the more open portion of the Rue Royale, with a step wh

from behind every flowering bush and sweet-smelling tree, and every stretch of lonely, half-lighted walk, by the genius of poetry. The air stirred softly now and then, and was still again, as if the breezes lifted their expectant

t-hand side of the way, when, just within this inclosure, and almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a mocking-bird began the first lo

t in a thick turf, as though the entrance had not been used for years. An iron staple clasped the cross-bar, and was driven deep into the gate-post. But now an eye that had been in the blacksmithing business-an eye which had later received high training as an eye for fastenings-fel

dow, he was thinking of one, the image of whose face and form had never left his inner vision sin

om. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There, very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely a door of the house might open u

down from her crown, and falling in two heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees, a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck

. O Memory! Can it be? Can it be? Is this his quest, or is it lunacy? The ground seems to M. Vignevielle the unsteady sea, and he to stand once more on a deck. And she? As she is now, if she but turn toward the orange, the whole glory of the moon will shine upon her face. His heart stands still; he is w