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THE TWO ACQUAINTANCES.

Though my first effort to pass the summer months in the country near Paris had proved a failure, it did not prevent my making a further effort in that direction.

This time I found myself in a small neglected old house on the slopes leading up to the forest of C.

Madame Robin, the owner, was as/old and neglected as the house, and all she had to live on was what she made by letting out her rooms. She was the widow of a painter who had left her the house and a large collection of his own pictures. He specialized in painting fruit of the most "carefully selected" and expensive kinds. On the mouldy walls hung these highly finished compositions and in the dining room great yellow melons, glistering bunches of grapes and downy peaches looked disdainfully below on the very plain fare cooked for me and served by Madame Robin herself.

I felt very sorry for the old lady. she had many grievances, no one would buy the paintings of fruit, and her husband's invention, some kind of varnish, had been stolen. Could I find a purchaser for her genuine Fragonard engravings? she asked. I knew very little about these but I promised to do my best. On my trips to Paris I would visit the various antiquarians and booksellers and endeavor to expose the merits of these engravings though I had only the old lady's word to go on. I may add that in spite of all my efforts I never sold one single copy.

Now the only other inmate of the house was Cora, a poor down-trodden little black dog. She had once been shot at and lumps on her back showed that several of these shots still remained there. Whenever there was any shooting about or a thunder-storm Cora would lose her wits and jump on to some soft place such as an arm-chair or better still a bed, and, then and there, in her excitement, relieve herself.