would have been prettily trapped. I had a bitter pill in store for her. My -word for it! "

His lip curls in a smile that ends in an atrocious grimace. He continues, chopping each of his words with moist little puffs of laughter:

" You know that I made a will, in which I gave her everrthing, — house, money, dividends, every- thing. She must have told you; she told every- body. Yes, but what she did not tell you, because she did not know it, is that, two months later, I made a second will, cancelling the first, in which I did not leave her anything, — not a sou."

Unable to contain himself longer, he bursts out laughing, a strident laugh that scatters through the garden like a flight of scolding sparrows. And he cries:

" Ah! that's an-idea, hey? Oh! her head, — you can see it from here, — on learning that I had left my little fortune to the French Academy. For, my little Celestine, it is true ; I had left my fortune to the French Academy. Ah! that's an idea! "

I allow his laughter to become quieter, and then I gravely ask him:

" And now. Captain, what are you going to do?"

The captain gives me a long, sly, amorous look, and says:

" Well, that depends on you."

"On me?"