The intimate friend of the first Madame de Nailles was a woman with neither elegance nor beauty. She never had left off her widow's weeds, which she had worn since she had lost her husband in early youth. In the eyes of Jacqueline her sombre figure personified austere, exacting Duty, a kind of duty not attractive to her. That very day it seemed as if duty inconveniently stepped in to break up a conversation that was deeply interesting to her. The impatient gesture that she made when her mother called her might have been interpreted into: Bother Madame d'Argy! "Jacqueline!" called again the silvery voice that had first summoned her; and a moment after the young girl found herself in the centre of a circle of grown people, saying good-morning, making curtseys, and kissing the withered hand of old Madame de Monredon, as she had been taught to do from infancy. Madame de Monredon was Giselle's grandmother. Jacqueline had been instructed to call her "aunt;" but in her heart she called her 'La Fee Gyognon', while Madame d'Argy, pointing to her son, said: "What do you think, darling, of such a surprise? He is home on leave. We came here the first place-naturally." "It was very nice of you. How do you do, Fred?" said Jacqueline, holding out her hand to a very young man, in a jacket ornamented with gold lace, who stood twisting his cap in his hand with some embarrassment "It is a long time since we have seen each other. But it does not seem to me that you have grown a great deal." Fred blushed up to the roots of his hair. "No one can say that of you, Jacqueline," observed Madame d'Argy. "No--what a may-pole!--isn't she?" said the Baronne, carelessly. "If she realizes it," whispered Madame de Monredon, who was sitting beside Madame d'Argy on a 'causeuse' shaped like an S, "why does she persist in dressing her like a child six years old? It is absurd!" "Still, she can have no reason for keeping her thus in order to make herself seem young. She is only a stepmother." "Of course. But people might make comparisons. Beauty in the bud sometimes blooms out unexpectedly when it is not welcome." "Yes--she is fading fast. Small women ought not to grow stout." "Anyhow, I have no patience with her for keeping a girl of fifteen in short skirts." "You are making her out older than she is." "How is that?--how is that? She is two years younger than Giselle, who has just entered her eighteenth year." While the two ladies were exchanging these little remarks, the Baronne de Nailles was saying to the young naval cadet: "Monsieur Fred, we should be charmed to keep you with us, but possibly you might like to see some of your old friends. Jacqueline can take you to them. They will be glad to see you." "Tiens!--that's true," said Jacqueline. "Dolly and Belle are yonder. You remember Isabelle Ray, who used to take dancing lessons with us."