“Non, vraiment! Dix francs! Does Monsieur think ten francs will pay for that!” tragically pointing towards the fragments in the fender. “An image of the Emperor! Non, Monsieur! I go to the General.” “How much?” Curtis tried to make her say. She gesticulated furiously, and declined payment. It was an insult to the Emperor. Did Monsieur imagine that money would wipe out that? Did Monsieur suppose that she cared only for her own loss? Bah!—nothing of the kind, though Madame was a widow, and could ill afford to lose anything. But this was a profound matter. Madame had a duty to perform, and incontestibly she would perform it. With which declaration the irate landlady disappeared. “That’s awkward,” Curtis said seriously. “She is the first of the kind that I have come across yet. We had a nice little landlady at Valenciennes. Roy, you had better be off, sharp. She may not know your name.” “And leave you to bear the blame for what I’ve done! I’m not so mean!” “It’s not meanness. She may cool down when she does not see you, and I must make another attempt. Of course I know that your father will pay anything in reason to get you out of the difficulty. Be off, Roy.” “But she knows my name well enough. She has seen me before, I’m pretty sure.” “All the more reason why you shouldn’t stay here. Get home as fast as you can, and tell your father at once. Don’t put off. I hope it will come to nothing; but Wirion is certain not to lose his chance of putting on the screw, and squeezing some money out of your people. Run off, as fast as you can. I’ll tackle her again.” Roy obeyed, by this time rather serious. “I wonder what does come over a fellow sometimes to make him make a fool of himself,” he cogitated. (_To be continued._) FOOTNOTES: [1] Not superior to that of the small force under Moore; but perhaps superior to that of the bulk of the then British Army. [2] See footnote, p. 162. IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE. BY RUTH LAMB. PART IV. HOW TO GROW OLD. “The hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.”—Proverbs xvi. 31. You, my dear girl friends, will not have forgotten our last talk about growing old, or that we left the most important part of it for this evening. We then dealt with externals, yet we realised that these were the outcome of our inner selves, and inseparable from them. Let me ask you to impress on your memories the text I have just quoted— “The hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of righteousness.” There is no glory in gray hairs unless accompanied by the holy, Christ-like life. On the contrary, anything in a character which is pitiable, degrading, impure, or contemptible, seems more lamentable in old age than at any other period of life. Childhood is emphatically the “age of innocence,” or ought to be such. Of the children those sweet lines were written: “They’ve the least taint of earthly sod; They’re freshest from the hand of God,”