“She has been here ever since?” “Every moment.” “How does she like it?” “Not at all.” “And how do _you_ like it?” Miss Spencer laid her face in her two hands an instant, as she had done ten minutes before. Then, quickly, she went to get the Countess’s coffee. I remained alone in the little parlor; I wanted to see more, to learn more. At the end of five minutes the young man whom Miss Spencer had described as the Countess’s pupil came in. He stood looking at me for a moment with parted lips. I saw he was a very rudimentary young man. “She wants to know if you won’t come out there,” he observed at last. “Who wants to know?” “The Countess. That French lady.” “She has asked you to bring me?” “Yes, sir,” said the young man feebly, looking at my six feet of stature. I went out with him, and we found the Countess sitting under one of the little quince-trees in front of the house. She was drawing a needle through the piece of embroidery which she had taken from the small table. She pointed graciously to the chair beside her, and I seated myself. Mr. Mixter glanced about him, and then sat down in the grass at her feet. He gazed upward, looking with parted lips from the Countess to me. “I am sure you speak French,” said the Countess, fixing her brilliant little eyes upon me. “I do, madam, after a fashion,” I answered in the lady’s own tongue. “_Voilà!_” she cried most expressively. “I knew it so soon as I looked at you. You have been in my poor dear country.” “A long time.” “You know Paris?” “Thoroughly, madam.” And with a certain conscious purpose I let my eyes meet her own. She presently, hereupon, moved her own and glanced down at Mr. Mixter “What are we talking about?” she demanded of her attentive pupil. He pulled his knees up, plucked at the grass with his hand, stared, blushed a little. “You are talking French,” said Mr. Mixter. “_La belle découverte!_” said the Countess. “Here are ten months,” she explained to me, “that I am giving him lessons. Don’t put yourself out not to say he’s an idiot; he won’t understand you.” “I hope your other pupils are more gratifying,” I remarked. “I have no others. They don’t know what French is in this place; they don’t want to know. You may therefore imagine the pleasure it is to me to meet a person who speaks it like yourself.” I replied that my own pleasure was not less; and she went on drawing her stitches through her embroidery, with her little finger curled out. Every few moments she put her eyes close to her work, nearsightedly. I thought her a very disagreeable person; she was coarse, affected, dishonest, and no more a countess than I was a caliph. “Talk to me of Paris,” she went on. “The very name of it gives me an emotion! How long since you were there?” “Two months ago.” “Happy man! Tell me something about it What were they doing? Oh, for an hour of the boulevard!” “They were doing about what they are always doing,--amusing themselves a good deal.”