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THE POWER OF THE UNSEEN.
To Monsieur de Canalis: My friend,--Suffer me to give you that name,--you have delighted me; I would not have you other than you are in this letter, the first--oh, may it not be the last! Who but a poet could have excused and understood a young girl so delicately?
I wish to speak with the sincerity that dictated the first lines of your letter.

And first, let me say that most fortunately you do not know me.

I can joyfully assure you than I am neither that hideous Mademoiselle Vilquin nor the very noble and withered Mademoiselle d'Herouville who floats between twenty and forty years of age, unable to decide on a satisfactory date.

The Cardinal d'Herouville flourished in the history of the Church at least a century before the cardinal of whom we boast as our only family glory,--for I take no account of lieutenant-generals, and abbes who write trumpery little verses.
Moreover, I do not live in the magnificent villa Vilquin; there is not in my veins, thank God, the ten-millionth of a drop of that chilly blood which flows behind a counter.