The actress rose from a low divan and extended one hand to her guest while she pressed two very small snakes to her bosom with the other. After she had resumed her seat upon the divan, and while conversing, she fondled the snakes or allowed them to squirm at will over her person. In reply to questions, Madame Bernhardt said that the snakes were used in the famous scene where Cleopatra presses the asp to her bosom and dies. The actress explained that the snakes with which she was playing were presented to her by a gentleman in Philadelphia. She spoke regretfully of the death of the snakes which she had brought with her from France, and which had succumbed to the hardships of the ocean voyage. Emily Crawford tells some good stories about “The Elder Dumas,” the most dashingly picturesque character, surely, in the whole range of literature. We quote a paragraph showing Dumas’s fondness for animals: “At his architectural folly of Monte Cristo, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which he built at a cost of upward of seven hundred thousand francs, and sold for thirty-six thousand francs in 1848, Dumas had uninclosed grounds and gardens, which, with the house, afforded lodgings and entertainment not only to a host of Bohemian ‘sponges,’ but to all the dogs, cats, and donkeys that chose to quarter themselves in the place. It was called by the neighbours ‘_la Maison de Bon Dieu_.’ There was a menagerie in the park, peopled by three apes; Jugurtha, the vulture, whose transport from Africa, whence Dumas fetched him, cost forty thousand francs (it would be too long to tell why); a big parrot called Duval; a macaw named Papa, and another christened Everard; Lucullus, the golden pheasant; Cæsar, the game-cock; a pea-fowl and a guinea-fowl; Myeouf II, the Angora cat, and the Scotch pointer, Pritchard. This dog was a character. He was fond of canine society, and used to sit in the road looking out for other dogs to invite them to keep him company at Monte Cristo. He was taken by his master to Ham to visit Louis Napoleon when a prisoner there. The latter wished to keep Pritchard, but counted without the intelligence of the animal in asking Dumas before his face to leave him behind. The pointer set up a howl so piteous that the governor of the prison withdrew the authorization he had given his captive to retain him.” It is difficult to think of any created thing that has not been found sufficiently interesting to be petted by some one!