making fun of him, and being assured that she had not, but that they had not allowed her to wait for him, and that she loved him like an elder sister, he grew calm and said, “I will be satisfied with that.”  The cousins seldom met in after-life, but preserved a tender affection for each other, which served to avert a lawsuit and rupture that threatened to grow out of a business disagreement between the two branches of the family.  In 1852, Clelia came to Paris to be present at Alfred’s reception by the French Academy.  He had great confidence in her taste and judgment, and the last time they met he said to her, “If there should ever be a handsome edition of my works, I will have a copy bound for you in white vellum with a gold band, as an emblem of our friendship.”

His first literary passion was the Arabian Nights, which filled the imagination of both brothers with magical lamps, wishing-carpets and secret caverns for nearly a twelvemonth, during which they were incessantly trying to carry out their fancies by constructing enchanted towers and palaces with the furniture of their apartment.  The Eastern stories were superseded by tales of chivalry:  Paul lit upon the Four Sons of Aymon in his grandfather’s library, and a new world opened before him in which he hastened to lose himself, taking his younger brother by the hand.  The children devoured Jerusalem Delivered, Orlando Furioso, Amadis de Gaule, and all the poems, tales and traditions of knighthood on which they could lay hands.  Their games now were of nothing but tilts and jousts, single combats, adventures and deeds of arms:  the paladins were their imaginary playfellows.  A little comrade, who charged with an extraordinary rush in the excitement of the tournament, generally represented Roland:  Alfred, being the youngest and smallest of the three, was allowed to bear the enchanted lance, the first touch of which unseated the boldest rider and bravest champion—­a pretty device of the elder brother’s, in which one hardly knows whether to be most charmed with the poetic fancy or the protecting affection which it displayed.  The delightful infatuation lasted for several years, undergoing some gradual modifications.  Until he was nine, Alfred had been chiefly taught at home by a tutor, but at that age he was sent to school, where the first term dispelled his belief in the marvellous.  His brother was by this time at boarding-school, and they met only on Sunday, when they renewed their knightly sports, but with diminished ardor.  One day Alfred asked Paul seriously what he thought of magic, and Paul confessed his scepticism.  The loss of this dear delusion was a painful shock to Alfred, as it is to many children.  Who cannot remember the change which came over the world when he first learned that Krisskinkle alias Santa Claus did not fill the Christmas stocking—­that the fairies had not made the greener ring in the grass, where he had firmly believed he might have seen them