SUDDEN FLASHES OF LIGHT The day was nearly gone.

The company that had been chatting at the front door, and which in warmer weather would have tarried until bedtime, had wandered off; however, by stepping toward the light the young merchant could decipher the letters on the purse.

Citizen Fusilier drew out a pair of spectacles, looked over his junior's shoulder, read aloud, "_Aurore De G.Nanca_--," and uttered an imprecation.
"Do not speak to me!" he thundered; "do not approach me! she did it maliciously!" "Sir!" began Frowenfeld.
But the old man uttered another tremendous malediction and hurried into the street and away.
"Let him pass," said the other Creole calmly.
"What is the matter with him ?" asked Frowenfeld.
"He is getting old." The Creole extended the purse carelessly to the apothecary.

"Has it anything inside ?" "But a single pistareen." "That is why she wanted the _basilic_, eh ?" "I do not understand you, sir." "Do you not know what she was going to do with it ?" "With the basil?
No sir." "May be she was going to make a little tisane, eh ?" said the Creole, forcing down a smile.
But a portion of the smile would come when Frowenfeld answered, with unnecessary resentment: "She was going to make some proper use of it, which need not concern me." "Without doubt." The Creole quietly walked a step or two forward and back and looked idly into the glass case.

"Is this young man in love with her ?" he asked himself.