Although nothing is more difficult of comprehension than the friendship of two of society's queens, dividing salon royalty among themselves and lavishing flattering epithets, the petty graces of feminine effusiveness, upon each other, the friendships of childhood retain in the woman a frankness of demeanor which distinguishes them and makes them recognizable among all other friendships; bonds woven in innocence and woven firmly, like the pieces of needlework made by little girls, whereon an inexperienced hand has lavished thread and great knots; plants that have grown in virgin soil, past their bloom but deeply-rooted and full of life and vigor. And what joy to turn back a few steps, hand in hand,--boarding-school Arguses, where are you?--with equal knowledge of the road and of its slightest windings, and with the same wistful laugh. Standing a little apart, the two girls, who needed only to stand face to face to forget five years of separation, talked rapidly, recalling bygone days, while little Pere Joyeuse, his ruddy face set off by a new cravat, drew himself up to his full height, proud beyond words that his daughter should be so warmly greeted by a celebrity. Proud he certainly had reason to be, for that little Parisian, even beside her resplendent friend, retained her full value for charm and youth and luminous innocence, beneath her twenty years, her rich, golden girlhood, which the joy of meeting caused to put forth fresh flowers. "How happy you must be! I haven't seen anything; but I hear everybody say that it is so beautiful." "Happy above all things to find you again, little Aline. It is such a long time--" "I should say as much, you bad girl. Whose fault is it?" In the saddest recess of her memory Felicia found the date of the rupture between them, coincident in her mind with another date when her youth died in a never-to-be-forgotten scene. "What have you been doing all this time, my love?" "Oh! always the same thing--nothing worth talking about." "Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, little brave heart. It is giving your life to others, is it not?" But Aline was no longer listening. She was smiling affectionately at a point straight before her, and Felicia, turning to see to whom that smile was addressed, saw Paul de Gery replying to Mademoiselle Joyeuse's shy and blushing salutation. "Do you know each other, pray?" "Do I know Monsieur Paul! I should think so. We talk of you often enough. Has he never told you?" "Never. He is terribly sly--" She stopped abruptly as a light flashed through her mind; and, paying no heed to de Gery, who came forward to do homage to her triumph, she leaned hastily toward Aline and whispered to her. The other blushed, protested with smiles, with inaudible words: "How can you imagine such a thing? At my age. A grandmamma!" And at last she grasped her father's arm to escape that friendly raillery.