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 Take one drop of the punch (or ponche, as she pronounced it); it is an agreeable and wholesome beverage after a full meal."

I bowed, but again declined it. She went on:—

"I feel," said she, after a solemn sip—"I feel profoundly the importance of the commission with which my dear daughter has entrusted me, for you are aware, monsieur, that it is my daughter who directs the establishment in the next house?"

"Ah! I thought it was yourself, madame." Though, indeed, at that moment, I recollected that it was called Mademoiselle, not Madame Reuter's pensionnat.

"I! oh no! I manage the house and look after the servants, as my friend Madame Pelet does for Monsieur her son—nothing more. Ah! you thought I gave lessons in class—did you?"

And she laughed, loud and long, as though the idea tickled her fancy amazingly.

"Madame is in the wrong to laugh," I observed,