I was sorely puzzled—until perhaps a week after—apropos of nothing, my little chatter-box remarked: “You know poor Madame de B—— was one of Count de Varney’s nurses at the very first of their acquaintance. He was a victim of insomnia. A doctor called the Count’s attention to her. She used to make him sleep, sometimes even against his will. The doctor said she had most unusual mesmeric power.”
We never spoke again of Madame de B——, but sometimes on an autumn night, dark and chill, with the rain falling stealthily on the sodden leaves that give forth no rustle when a cautious foot presses them, I have caught myself repeating those ominous words: “I—wonder—what—became—of—that—devoted—valet?” But now to that query there can be but one answer: “In Paris suddenly, Madame de B——.”
Two Buds
Two Buds
“There is no poetry in life to-day!” We were walking down Euclid Avenue, and my friend had been expressing her hot disapproval of many things in this really excellent world of ours, ending with that youthfully positive assertion: “There is no poetry in life to-day!”
I mildly suggested that she might not recognize it as poetry, if she saw it, as poems were not always bound in white and silver nor yet in blue and gold—some, indeed, never reaching the honor (?) of binding at all.