almost a mythical personage. All of us acted in the same way,
reconciling the requirements of our common life with the rules of good
taste. Claudine, Hortense, the Baroness, the Bourgeoise, the Empress,
the Spaniard, the Lioness,--these were cryptic titles which permitted
us to pour out our joys, our cares, vexations, and hopes, and to
communicate our discoveries. Further, none of us went. It has been
shown, in Bohemia, that chance discovered the identity of the fair
unknown; and at once, as by tacit convention, not one of us spoke of
her again. This fact may show how far youth possesses a sense of true
delicacy. How admirably certain natures of a finer clay know the limit
line where jest must end, and all that host of things French covered
by the slang word _blague_, a word which will shortly be cast out of
the language (let us hope), and yet it is the only one which conveys
an idea of the spirit of Bohemia.

"So we often used to joke about Claudine and the Count--'_Toujours
Claudine?_' sung to the air of _Toujours Gessle_.--'What are you
making of Claudine?'--'How is Claudine?'

"'I wish you all such a mistress, for all the harm I wish you,' La
Palferine began one day. 'No greyhound, no basset-dog, no poodle can
match her in gentleness, submissiveness, and complete tenderness.
There are times when I reproach myself, when I take myself to task for
my hard heart. Claudine obeys with saintly sweetness. She comes to me,
I tell her to go, she goes, she does not even cry till she is out in
the courtyard. I refuse to see her for a whole week at a time. I tell
her to come at such an hour on Tuesday; and be it midnight or six
o'clock in the morning, ten o'clock, five o'clock, breakfast time,
dinner time, bed time, any particularly inconvenient hour in the day
--she will come, punctual to the minute, beautiful, beautifully dressed,