A few days after Charles Keller’s death, the note being almost due, Mademoiselle Antonia went to the counting-room of the Keller Brothers to inquire about its payment.  The cashier, who is crabbed, like all cashiers, replied that he did not see how Mademoiselle Antonia had the face to present such a note; at any rate, the heads of the house were at Gondreville, where the whole family had met after receiving the fatal news, and he should pay no such note without referring the matter to them.

“Very good, then I’ll refer it to them myself,” replied Mademoiselle Antonia.  Thereupon she was meditating a departure alone to Arcis, when the government felt the need of insulting us with more wit and point than provincial journalism can muster, and so confided that employment to a middle-aged journalist to whom Mademoiselle Antonia had, during the absence of Charles Keller, shown some kindness.  “I am going to Arcis,” seems to have been said at the same instant by writer and lady.  The most commonplace lives encounter similar coincidences.

Now, madame, admire the manner in which things link together.  Setting forth on a purely selfish financial enterprise, behold Mademoiselle Chocardelle suddenly brought to the point of wielding an immense electoral influence!  And observe also that her influence is of a nature to compensate for all the witty pin-pricks of her gallant companion.

Mademoiselle’s affair, it appears, hung fire.  Twice she went to Gondreville, and was not admitted.  The journalist was busy,—­partly with his articles, and partly with certain commissions given to him by Monsieur de Trailles, under whose orders he was told to place himself.  Mademoiselle Antonia was therefore much alone; and in the ennui of such solitude, she was led to create for herself a really desperate amusement.

A few steps from the Hotel de la Poste is a bridge across the Aube; a path leads down beside it, by a steep incline, to the water’s edge, which, being hidden from the roadway above and little frequented, offers peace and solitude to whoever may like to dream there to the sound of the rippling current.  Mademoiselle Antonia at first took a book with her; but books not being, as she says, in her line, she looked about for other ways of killing her time, and bethought herself of fishing, for which amusement the landlord of the inn supplied her with a rod.  Much pleased with her first successes, the pretty exile devoted herself to an occupation which must be attractive,—­witness the fanatics that it makes; and the few persons who crossed the bridge could admire at all hours a charming naiad in a flounced gown and a broad-brimmed straw hat, engaged in fishing with the conscientious gravity of a gamin de Paris.

Up to this time Mademoiselle Antonia and her fishing have had nothing to do with our election; but if you will recall, madame, in the history of Don Quixote (which I have heard you admire for its common-sense and jovial reasoning) the rather disagreeable adventures of Rosinante and the muleteers, you will have a foretaste of the good luck which the development of Mademoiselle Antonia’s new passion brought to us.