And, again, the lady had come without baggage, even so much as in eloping from home.

But Madame Clemenceau explained, with the most natural air in the world, that she had walked over from the railway station, where her impedimenta remained.
"Walked half a mile ?" ejaculated Hedwig, who knew that the speaker had been vigorous enough at Munich, but, since her marriage, and living at Montmorency, she had assumed the popular air of a semi-invalid, "So you are strong in health again ?" "Yes; but I have been very unwell," replied the lady, sinking back in the chair as she remembered the course she had intended to adopt.

"I was very nearly at death's door," she sighed.

"I really believed that I should nevermore see any of you, my poor husband and you others.

Do you think that anything hut a severe ailment could excuse me for my strange silence--my apparently wicked absence ?" Hedwig went on going through the form of dusting the huge metal-bound chest, which had attracted the mistress' eyes as a new article of furniture.