They tasted this wine, which seemed excellent. Not that it proved to be remarkable, but it had been fifteen years in the cellar. Cimme declared it was just the wine for sickness. Columbel, seized with a desire of possessing some of it, asked of the maid: "How much is left of it, my girl?" "Oh, nearly all, sir; Miss never drinks any of it. It is the heap at the bottom." Then Columbel turned toward his brother-in-law: "If you wish, Cimme, I will take this wine instead of anything else; it agrees with my stomach wonderfully." The hen, in her turn, had entered with her troop of chickens; the two women amused themselves by throwing crumbs to them. Joseph and the dog, who had eaten enough, returned to the garden. Queen Hortense spoke continually, but the voice was lower now, so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the words. When they had finished the coffee, they all went in to learn the condition of the sick one. She seemed calm. They went out and seated themselves in a circle in the garden, to aid digestion. Presently the dog began to run around the chairs with all speed, carrying something in his mouth. The child ran after him violently. Both disappeared into the house. Cimme fell asleep, with his stomach in the sun. The dying one began to speak loud again. Then suddenly she shouted. The two women and Columbel hastened in to see what had happened. Cimme awakened but did not move, liking better things as they were. The dying woman was sitting up, staring with haggard eyes. Her dog, to escape the pursuit of little Joseph, had jumped upon the bed, startling her from the death agony. The dog was intrenched behind the pillow, peeping at his comrade with eyes glistening, ready to jump again at the least movement. He held in his mouth one of the slippers of his mistress, shorn of its heel in the hour he had played with it. The child, intimidated by the woman rising so suddenly before him, remained motionless before the bed. The hen, having just entered, had jumped upon a chair, frightened by the noise. She called desperately to her chickens, which peeped, frightened, from under the four legs of the seat. Queen Hortense cried out with a piercing tone: "No, no, I do not wish to die! I am not willing! Who will bring up my children? Who will care for them? Who will love them? No, I am not willing! I am not----" She turned on her back. All was over. The dog, much excited, jumped into the room and skipped about. Columbel ran to the window and called his brother-in-law: "Come quickly! come quickly! I believe she is gone." Then Cimme got up and resolutely went into the room, muttering: "It was not as long as I should have believed." COMPLICATION After swearing for a long time that he would never marry, Jack Boudillère suddenly changed his mind. It happened one summer at the seashore, quite unexpectedly.