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N a spacious atelier are two young men; one is standing before an easel and taking advantage of the last of the fading daylight, the other, stretched at length upon a great red divan, is nonchalantly smoking a long pipe and twirling in his fingers a letter of which the seal is yet unbroken. Both have their hair long and wear mustaches. To-morrow, perhaps, you will see them with close-cropped heads and lips, and the day after they will be starting a beard again beneath the chin.

"I don't know why it is," said the smoker, "that I hesitate to include this letter in the fate to which I have been condemning my other letters for the last two months. I can't help feeling sorry to burn it unread, the more that it is in my father's handwriting. I can guess very nearly what were the contents of the two missives that he addressed to me previously to this one. The first contained, necessarily, reproaches and threats, the second, probably, reproaches and good advice, I should not be surprised to find a money-order in this one. Parbleu!" he added, after having glanced over the opening lines, "I was not