As soon as my secretary had gone I went into her room and looked for my friend Vespa. I found him on the floor, quite dead, but not demolished. Picking him up and carrying him to my study, I carefully gummed him to a card. Under his motionless form I wrote, "The good services of this friend I shall ever keep in grateful remembrance." Then I pinned the card to the wall between two bookcases.

During the rest of that day I found myself in a state of unreasonable exaltation. Several times I put to myself the questions: Why is it that you feel so cheerful and so gay? Why have you the inclination to whistle and to dance in your room? Why do you light a cigar, and let it go out through forgetfulness? Why do you answer your grandmother at random, and feel an inclination to take a long walk by yourself, although you know there are people invited to an afternoon tea?

I was not able to give an adequate answer to these questions, nor did I very much care to. I knew that my high spirits were caused by the discoveries the good Vespa had enabled me to make, and the fact that this reason could not be proved adequate did not trouble me at all; but prudence and a regard for my own interests made it very plain to me that other people should not know I had been exalted, and how. If I desired my nun to continue as my secretary, I must not let any one know that I cared in the least to hear her voice, or to have the front of her bonnet turned towards me.

At dinner, that day, my grandmother remarked to me:—

"Are you still satisfied with the House of Martha\'s sister? Does she do your work as you wish to have it done?"

I leaned back in my chair, and answered with deliberation:—

"Yes, I think she will do very well, and that after more practice she will do better. As it is, she is industrious and attentive. I place great stress upon that point, for I do not like to repeat my sentences; but she has a quick ear, and catches every word."

"Then," asked my grandmother, "you do not wish to make a change at present?"

"Oh, no," I said; "it would be very annoying to begin again with a new amanuensis. I am getting accustomed to this person, and that is a very important matter with me. So I do not wish to make any change so long as this sister does her work properly."

"I must say," resumed my grandmother, after a little pause, in which she seemed to be considering the subject, "that I was not altogether in favor of that young woman taking the position of your secretary. She can have had but little experience, and I thought that an older and steadier person would answer your purpose much better; but this one was unemployed at the time, and wished very much to do literary work; and as the institution needed the money you would pay, which would probably amount to a considerable sum if your book should be a long one, and as you were in a great hurry, and might engage some one from the city if one of the Martha sisters were not immediately available, Mother Anastasia and I concluded that it would be well to send this young person until one of the older sisters............