idleness without a murmur, and had no fault except that of a disposition to fall in love at the very slightest provocation.
Marcelline, the elder daughter, gained her share of the family pâtée by the exercise of her pen. She wrote for two or three fashion-magazines, and was an authority upon the ways and customs, the houses and gowns, of the great world, under various high-sounding noms de plume. She signed herself in one paper La Comtesse Boisjoli, in another La Marquise de la Vallière. Needless to add that she had never crossed the thresholds of those great houses which she described so glibly. She obtained her information from shopkeepers, her glimpses of society from the pavement on which rank and beauty alighted for an instant in their passage from the carriage to the hall-door. All the rest was evolved from a lively inner-consciousness.
Mathilde was the more serious sister, devoted to art for art's sake; believing in Bach and the severe school as the highest ideal in life, worshipping the memory of Berlioz, and despising those vanities which occupied the thoughts of her elder sister.
All the family made Hilda welcome. They praised her French, pronounced falteringly in a paroxysm of shyness. The girls took off her hat and jacket, and installed her in a comfortable chair, while Madame bustled about with the bonne, and set out a tea-tray and a feast of sweet cakes such as Frenchwomen love. Nothing could be more fortunate than that dear Mdlle. Duprez and her sweet young friend had dropped in to tea this evening, protested Mdme. Tillet, for they were momentarily expecting a visit from one of the most intellectual men in Paris, Sigismond Trottier. "You must have heard of M. Trottier," said Madame; "his name must be known in London as well as it is in Paris."
Hilda blushingly admitted that she knew very little of London, and that she had never heard of M. Trottier.
"Really! But he must have a world-wide fame. The Taon, for which he writes, has made a greater sensation than even the Lanterne in the days of Napoleon III. The last defeat of the Government was ascribed to the influence of the Taon. The Taon has done more to undermine the Conservative party than any other paper," said M. Tillet from the depths of his easy-chair. "Yet politics are not Trottier's chief forte. As a politician he is trenchant and effective, but as a writer upon social topics he is really great."
The bonne opened the door and announced "M. Trottier," and Hilda looked anxiously at the newcomer, finding herself for the first time in her life in the company of a literary genius.
She would have liked to see the literary genius in a cleaner shirt; but she had stories of Chatterton, of Savage, and Johnson and Goldsmith at heart; and it seemed to her only natural that genius should be rather dirty, and clad in a greasy olive-
