the other in a blue, dress, stood bareheaded beside the earth-embankments of a low-roofed house, and shrieked with high-pitched, forced laughter, evidently to attract the attention of passing officers. The officers, dressed in new uniforms, with glittering epaulettes and white gloves, flaunted along the street and on the boulevard. I found my acquaintance on the ground-floor of the general’s house. I had scarcely had time to explain my wishes to him, and to get his reply, that they could easily be fulfilled, when the pretty little brougham I had noticed outside rattled past the window we were sitting at. A tall well-built man, in an infantry major’s uniform and epaulettes, got out and entered the house.
“Oh, please excuse me,” said the adjutant, rising; “I must go and announce them to the general.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“The countess,” he replied and, buttoning his uniform, rushed upstairs.
A few minutes later a very handsome man in a frock coat without epaulettes, a white cross in his buttonhole, went out into the porch. He was not tall, but remarkably good-looking. He was followed by the major, the adjutant, and a couple of other officers. The general’s gait, voice, and all his movements, showed him to be a man well aware of his own value.
“ Bonsoir, Madame la Comtesse ,” he said, offering his hand through the carriage-window.
A small hand in a kid glove pressed his, and a pretty smiling face in a yellow bonnet appeared at the carriage-window.
Of the conversation, which lasted several minutes, I only overheard the general say laughingly, as I passed by: