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 *tically pulled. Fifi ran and opened the door. There stood Doctor Mailly, the eminent surgeon, who had the apartment above the Bourcet's; Colonel and Madame Bruart, who lived in the apartment below, and about half a dozen others of the highly respectable persons who inhabited this highly respectable house.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Fifi, in the tone of easy confidence which the stage had bred in her, "there is nothing whatever to be alarmed about. I am simply burning up a gown which Monsieur Louis Bourcet, my fiancé, objected to—and as—as—I am madly in love with him, I destroy the gown in order to win his approval. Can any of you—at least those who know what it is to love and be beloved—think me wrong?"

There was a dead silence. Louis Bourcet, his face crimson, advanced and said sternly to Fifi:

"Mademoiselle, I desire to say that I consider your conduct in regard to the gown most uncalled for, most sensational and wholly opposed to my wishes."

"So you wanted to see me wear it again, did you?" cried Fifi, roguishly; and then, relapsing into a sentimental attitude, she said: "But you