was telling her lover in the country dialect, and in a cooing and
delightful voice, how she adored him and that she belonged to him....

Madame de Maurillac is in a lunatic asylum, and Fabienne has married the
gardener.

What could she have done better?




GHOSTS


Just at the time when the _Concordat_ was in its most flourishing
condition, a young man belonging to a wealthy and highly respected
middle class family went to the office of the head of the police at
P----, and begged for his help and advice, which was immediately
promised him.

"My father threatens to disinherit me," the young man then began,
"although I have never offended against the laws of the State, of
morality or of his paternal authority, merely because I do not share his
blind reverence for the Catholic Church and her Ministers. On that
account he looks upon me, not merely as Latitudinarian, but as a perfect
Atheist, and a faithful old manservant of ours, who is much attached to
me, and who accidentally saw my father's will, told me in confidence
that he had left all his property to the Jesuits. I think this is highly
suspicious, and I fear that the priests have been maligning me to my
father. Until less than a year ago, we used to live very quietly and