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us constantly and Jeanne and her husband have telegraphed that we may expect them day after to-morrow. They are evidently immensely émotionnés, for they almost never telegraph. They wish so to receive Gaston. We have determined all the same to be intensely quiet, and that will be sure to be his view. Alphonse and Maxime now recognise that it is best to leave Mr. Flack alone, hard as it is to keep one's hands off him. Have you anything to lui faire dire—to my precious brother when he arrives? But it is foolish of me to ask you that, for you had much better not answer this. You will no doubt have an opportunity to say to him—whatever, my dear Francie, you can say! It will matter comparatively little that you may never be able to say it to your friend, with every allowance, "."

Francie looked at this letter and tossed it away without reading it. Delia picked it up, read it to her father, who didn't understand it, and kept it in her possession, poring over it as Mr. Flack had seen her pore over the cards that were left while she was out or over the registers of American travellers. They knew of Gaston's arrival by his telegraphing from Havre (he came back by the French line), and he mentioned the hour—"about dinner-time"—at which he should reach Paris. Delia, after dinner, made her father take her to the circus, so that Francie should be left alone to receive her intended, who would be sure to hurry round in the course of the evening. The girl herself expressed no preference whatever on this point, and the idea was one of Delia's masterly ones, her flashes of inspiration. There was never any difficulty about imposing such conceptions on