III.The three thousand windows of this glass palace exchanged glances of moonlight so bright that the edifice seemed glowing at a white heat, ablaze with the fire, kindled by the rising orb which so frequently deceives the traveller. The cactus was breathing forth a store of strange odour, the vanilla its sweet perfume. The volcaneria distilled the vinous heat from its tufts, the jessamine exhaled a poetic fragrance, the magnolia intoxicated the air, while the aroma of the datura advanced with the pomp of a Persian king, and the powerful Chinese lily sent her breath onward with an overpowering force that assimilated all the other odours of the flowery scene.The perfume-laden air stood motionless to feast upon the spectacle presented by a troop of midnight spirits, as they rose from an enchanted spot shaded by a grove of bananas, whose wide-spreading leaves formed a canopy gilded by a phosphorescent light. Soft streams of music floated around, gently awakening the spirits to their nocturnal revels. Suddenly the lights fell on a patch of green cactus, revealing the gay form of Prince Jarpeado exposed to the witchery of the fairy queen and her gorgeous attendants, robed in costumes so aërial as to disclose the full charms of their lovely forms. Phantom-Crickets sang love-ditties in the daintiest retreats, while a choir of winged musicians chanted the praises of the prince, who stood unmoved by the seductive art of this witching band. The passion-imbued glance of the queen fell, shivered against the armour of Jarpeado’s true heart, where, enshrined in all its artless purity, he treasured the image of the fair Anna. The music ceased, and in a silvery voice the queen, radiant with an unearthly beauty,exclaimed—“Jarpeado! Jarpeado! receive the homage of the fairy queen whose heart thou hast won.”The moment was enchanting. The perfumed breeze wooed the flushed cheek of the prince, and whispered love. Jarpeado stood irresolute. It was but for an instant, when rousing himself from the subtle influences that were kindling a fire of unworthy passion in his breast, hereplied—“Fair spirit, whose unearthly radiance lays siege to a true heart, and who with cunning and skill have sought out the weak points of my armour, all thine arts, wiles, and hellish tricks can never quench my love for the fair Anna.”Scarcely had the last word escaped his lips, when the weird scene was blotted out from his gaze, and a ghastly green light disclosed a slimy waste alive with crawling monads, and all the simplest forms of life. The balmy air was chilled and its fragrance replaced by the noxious breath of animal decay. A flash of lightning and peal of thunder heralded the approach of a monster with mouth wide open, dark and deep as the bottomless pit, his horns erect, his tail fiercely sweeping the waste; onward he came, spreading terror around, and leaving death in his train.This was the Valvos, which preyed like cholera on the people, but the prince escaped, saved by a fair maiden.“Daughter of my country!” he exclaimed, “my deliverer, cruel destiny stands between us; I cannot wed thee.”The scene changed, and Anna was transported unseen to the attic of her lover, the poor pupil of Granarius. Bent over his books, for a moment he raised his head, cryingout—“Oh! if Anna would only wait for me; in three years I shall have the cross of the Legion of Honour. I feel, I know, I shall solve this entomological problem, and succeed in transporting to Algeria the culture of theCocus Cacti. Good heavens! that would be a conquest.”Anna awoke and found herself in bed, she had dreamed a dream. But who was this Jarpeado of whom her father constantly spoke? She hastened to ask the old professor. It was necessary to be careful, she must watch, and after breakfast seize one of his lucid intervals; for in his normal condition, her father’s mind was absent exploring the fathomless depths of science. Seated at the breakfast table sheexclaimed—“Father!”—just as the professor was putting a spoonful of salt into his coffee—“what are you thinking about?”“Well, Anna, dear, I was investigating the subject of monads, or rather the nature of these simple inorganic forms, twelve months before birth, and I come to the conclusionthat”——“That my dear father, if you succeed in introducing one of these ridiculous creatures to the scientists of Paris, you will both be decorated. But who, tell me, is this Prince Jarpeado?”“Prince Jarpeado is the last of the dynasty of the Cactriane,” replied the worthy professor, who employed allegory in addressing his daughter, forgetful that her mind had matured, and she had ceased to play with dolls; “a large country, basking in the sun’s rays, andhaving a longitude and latitude—matters these you do not comprehend. The country is populous as China, and like that unhappy land, subject to periodical inundations, not of cold water, but of hot water, let loose by the hand of man. This depopulates the land, but nature has so provided that a single prince may alone repair the damage. This reminds me of something I discovered ten years ago in connection with Infusoria, the Rotafera of Cuvier,they”——“Yes. But the prince, the prince!” cried Anna, fearing lest her father should fall into a reverie and she would hear nothing more.“The prince,” replied the old professor, giving a touch to his wig, “escaped—thanks to the French Government—from the destroying flood, and he has been brought up without consulting his future, away from his fair realm. He was transported in his undeveloped form to my illustrious predecessor Sacrampe—the inventor of Ducks.“Jarpeado came here at the request of the Government on a bed of dust, made up of millions of his father’s subjects, embalmed by the Indians of Gualaca, not one of the nymphs of Rubens, not one of Miéris’ pretty girls has been able to dispense with the mummies of this race. Yes, my child, whole populations deck the lips which smile upon or defy you from each canvas. How would you like the freak of some giant painter who would take generations of human beings on his palette, crushing them to produce the colours of an immense fresco? Heaven forbid that it should be so!” Here the professor fell into a profound reverie as was his wont after uttering the word heaven.The pupil of Granarius, Jules Sauval, entered. If you have ever met one of those modest young fellows devoted to science, knowing much, yet possessing a certain simplicity, which, although charming, does not prevent him from being the most ambitious creature in the world, an innocent who would turn the earth upside down about a hyoïde bone, or a univalve shell. If you have seen a youth of this type, then you know Jules Sauval. He was as candid as he was poor—candour goes when fortune comes.—He venerated Professor Granarius as a father, and admired in him the disciple of the great Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Blessed be science, Jules Sauval would have just been the same, even supposing the professor had no pretty daughter Anna. He was a second Jarpeado alive among the dry bones and débris of antiquity. Just as theCoccus cacti—the subjects of Jarpeado—had been crushed to lend a glow of life to the finest works of art, so the young student identified himself with defunct organisms inorder that science might all the more faithfully picture the forms and colours of pre-historic life. Like Jarpeado, Jules Sauval had his loves, he admired the fair Anna as a perfect type of a highly-organised sensitive animal—so he said.In common with the professor he was intent upon uniting this red prince to some analogous creature. The men of science had come down to the level of the members of the Chamber of Deputies, and talked them into erecting a spacious hothouse to contain the finest plants of the tropics. Within its glass walls the illustrious professor has found a solitary living specimen of theCoccus cacti—Cochineal—Jarpeado, whose habits they had studied so profoundly as to discover that the prince was endowed with pride of race, and passion of sentiment, opposed to his union with any partner saving a princess of his own vermilion blood.“Alas! Professor,” exclaimed Jules, “I have just left the glass-house, and all is lost! There is no possibility of uniting Jarpeado to any living creature, he refused theCoccus ficus caricæ. I had them under our best microscope.”“Ah, you horrid creature!” cried Anna. “This is then a prince of the insect world, and yet his history is interesting. I might have known he was no human being, since you say he will die faithful to his first love.”“Hush, child,” said Granarius, “I fail to note the difference between dying faithful and unfaithful, when it is a question of dying.”“You will never understand me, sir,” said Anna, in a tone which startled the mild professor, “and as for you, Mr. Jules, all your science and all your charms will never tempt the prince to prove unfaithful. You, sir, shall never be capable of love such as his. A little less science and a trifle more common sense would have suggested keeping him among the dust of his defunct ancestors, where, perchance, he left his living partner, or will find another of red-royal blood.”The professor and his pupil elated by this marvellous suggestion hastened to replace Jarpeado in the dust from which he had been taken.Alas! sighed Anna, Jules loves me not, else he would have lingered with me to tell his love. I made the path clear for him. Yet he perceived it not, but has gone with my father to speculate on the introduction of this scarletCoccus cactidynasty into Algeria. Following them to the large hothouse in the Jardin des Plantes, Annaobserved her father consigning the small paper ofCoccus cactidust into the centre of the first nopal that had flowered.A jealous Englishman, witness of this scientific operation, remarked in passing, “This old fool uses the plant as a portfolio!”“Heat the house well,” cried Granarius, as he fell into a profound reverie, leaving his daughter and Jules to talk of love, or science.“So, Mr. Jules, you have ceased to love me,” said Anna.“Nay,” replied Jules, “I do not think you do me justice, but I have come to the conclusion that sentiment, or passion, in all animals, follows a fixed natural law, and being divided between two creatures ought to form a perfect equation.”“Oh, infernal science! thus to bamboozle a poor brain. Probably your sentiments are established on the equation of dowry, and you have yet to learn what love is, Mr. Jules. If you do not take care, science will claim possession, not only of your soul, but of your body, and you will become a beast like Nebuchadnezzar. History relates that he assumed this form because he devoted seven years to zoology in classing the different species, without once pausing to trim his beard. Six hundred years hence it will be said of certain zoologists that they were advanced types of the Orang-outang who stuck up for their race, and for themselves as examples of progression.”Jules was called away by the professor, while Anna, turning to a huge microscope, beheld a new world of creatures, invisible to the naked eye. There she saw the Volvoce engaged in a steeple-chase, mounted on an animal making for the winning post. Many elegant Cercairæ were on the course, the prize being infinitely superior to that of the Derby; for the winner was to feast on the Vorticella, at once animals and flowers. Neither Bory, Saint Vincent, nor Müller—that immortal Dame—have taken it upon themselves to decide whether the Vorticella is more plant than animal; had they been bolder they might have drawn valuable conclusions from the man vegetable known to coachmen asmelon.Anna was soon drawn from the contemplation of this little world to the fortunes of Jarpeado, who, in her vivid imagination, had become the hero of a fairy tale. He had at last discovered the object of his affections in a nursling of his tribe, over whom he watched as she lay in state beneath a perfumed pavilion, awaiting the incarnation common alike to heathen deities and zoological creatures. They were the Paul and Virginia of insect life. The pavilion was guarded by soldiersattired in madder. The prince proved himself a wise general, as well as ardent lover, for in order to protect his domain against a powerful-winged foe called the Muscicapa, he ordered all his intelligent subjects to throw themselves in such numbers on the monster, as to choke him,or else satisfy his hunger. For this service he promised decorations and titles; that was all he had to offer. The breast of Anna was filled with admiration of these cheap and valuable political inventions.Invisible nuns shrouded the little princess in grey veils, so that nothing but her head was seen as she lay in state, awaiting her new winged life. Anna witnessed the joy of Paul, when, like Venus rising from the waves, Virginia quitted her winding sheet, and like Milton’s Eve—who is a real English Eve—smiled on the light, and looking at Paul, exclaimed, “Oh!”—this superlative of English astonishment. The prince, with a slave’s submission, offered to show the fair one the path of life, across the hills and dales of his empire.Virginia, growing in loveliness and in the prince’s affections, returned his care with caresses, while Paul ministered to her wants, bringing the ripest fruits for her food; and they at last embarked in a little skiff, on a lake bright as a diamond, and hardly larger than a drop of water. Virginia was arrayed in a bridal robe of brilliant stripes and great richness, her appearance recalling the famous Esmeralda, celebrated by Victor Hugo, only Esmeralda was a woman, and Virginia an angel who would not for all the world have loved a Marshal of the court, far less a Colonel. Her whole affections were consecrated to Jarpeado. Happy pair, thought Anna, but alas! what came of it all? After the wedding came family cares, and a brood destined to make the fame and fortune of her much-loved, but faithless Jules.A few evenings later, Anna was frowning on her father, and saying toJules—“You are no longer faithful to the palm-house, so much gazing on the Cochineal has affected your taste. You are about to marry a red-haired girl, with large feet, without any figure, devoid alike of ideas and manners, freckled. She wears dyed dresses, and will wound your pride twenty times a day, and your ears with her sonatas.”She opened her piano and began to play with such feeling, that the Spiders remained pensive in their webs on Granarius’ ceiling, and the flowers put their heads in at the window to listen.“Ah me!” said Anna, “animals have more sense than the wise men who preserve them in glass-cases.”Jules left the room, sad at heart, for the talent, beauty, and brightness of this good soul was struggling with the concert of vulgar coins which his red-haired bride was bringing to his door.“Ah!” exclaimed Professor Granarius, “what have we here in the papers? Listen, Anna.“ ‘Thanks to the efforts of the learned Professor Granarius, assisted by his clever pupil Jules Sauval, ten grains of cochineal have been obtained on the Nopal in the great palm-house. Doubtless this culture will flourish in our African possessions, and will free us from the tribute we pay to the new world. Thus the expense of the great palm-house has been justified—against which opposition was not slow to make itself heard—but the costly structure will yet render many valuable services to French commerce and agriculture. M. J. Sauval is named Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.’ ”“M. Jules behaves badly to us,” said Anna, “for you have commenced the history of theCoccus cacti, and he has impudently takenup”——“Bah!” said the professor, “he is my pupil.”
The three thousand windows of this glass palace exchanged glances of moonlight so bright that the edifice seemed glowing at a white heat, ablaze with the fire, kindled by the rising orb which so frequently deceives the traveller. The cactus was breathing forth a store of strange odour, the vanilla its sweet perfume. The volcaneria distilled the vinous heat from its tufts, the jessamine exhaled a poetic fragrance, the magnolia intoxicated the air, while the aroma of the datura advanced with the pomp of a Persian king, and the powerful Chinese lily sent her breath onward with an overpowering force that assimilated all the other odours of the flowery scene.
The perfume-laden air stood motionless to feast upon the spectacle presented by a troop of midnight spirits, as they rose from an enchanted spot shaded by a grove of bananas, whose wide-spreading leaves formed a canopy gilded by a phosphorescent light. Soft streams of music floated around, gently awakening the spirits to their nocturnal revels. Suddenly the lights fell on a patch of green cactus, revealing the gay form of Prince Jarpeado exposed to the witchery of the fairy queen and her gorgeous attendants, robed in costumes so aërial as to disclose the full charms of their lovely forms. Phantom-Crickets sang love-ditties in the daintiest retreats, while a choir of winged musicians chanted the praises of the prince, who stood unmoved by the seductive art of this witching band. The passion-imbued glance of the queen fell, shivered against the armour of Jarpeado’s true heart, where, enshrined in all its artless purity, he treasured the image of the fair Anna. The music ceased, and in a silvery voice the queen, radiant with an unearthly beauty,exclaimed—
“Jarpeado! Jarpeado! receive the homage of the fairy queen whose heart thou hast won.”
The moment was enchanting. The perfumed breeze wooed the flushed cheek of the prince, and whispered love. Jarpeado stood irresolute. It was but for an instant, when rousing himself from the subtle influences that were kindling a fire of unworthy passion in his breast, hereplied—
“Fair spirit, whose unearthly radiance lays siege to a true heart, and who with cunning and skill have sought out the weak points of my armour, all thine arts, wiles, and hellish tricks can never quench my love for the fair Anna.”
Scarcely had the last word escaped his lips, when the weird scene was blotted out from his gaze, and a ghastly green light disclosed a slimy waste alive with crawling monads, and all the simplest forms of life. The balmy air was chilled and its fragrance replaced by the noxious breath of animal decay. A flash of lightning and peal of thunder heralded the approach of a monster with mouth wide open, dark and deep as the bottomless pit, his horns erect, his tail fiercely sweeping the waste; onward he came, spreading terror around, and leaving death in his train.
This was the Valvos, which preyed like cholera on the people, but the prince escaped, saved by a fair maiden.
“Daughter of my country!” he exclaimed, “my deliverer, cruel destiny stands between us; I cannot wed thee.”
The scene changed, and Anna was transported unseen to the attic of her lover, the poor pupil of Granarius. Bent over his books, for a moment he raised his head, cryingout—
“Oh! if Anna would only wait for me; in three years I shall have the cross of the Legion of Honour. I feel, I know, I shall solve this entomological problem, and succeed in transporting to Algeria the culture of theCocus Cacti. Good heavens! that would be a conquest.”
Anna awoke and found herself in bed, she had dreamed a dream. But who was this Jarpeado of whom her father constantly spoke? She hastened to ask the old professor. It was necessary to be careful, she must watch, and after breakfast seize one of his lucid intervals; for in his normal condition, her father’s mind was absent exploring the fathomless depths of science. Seated at the breakfast table sheexclaimed—
“Father!”—just as the professor was putting a spoonful of salt into his coffee—“what are you thinking about?”
“Well, Anna, dear, I was investigating the subject of monads, or rather the nature of these simple inorganic forms, twelve months before birth, and I come to the conclusionthat”——
“That my dear father, if you succeed in introducing one of these ridiculous creatures to the scientists of Paris, you will both be decorated. But who, tell me, is this Prince Jarpeado?”
“Prince Jarpeado is the last of the dynasty of the Cactriane,” replied the worthy professor, who employed allegory in addressing his daughter, forgetful that her mind had matured, and she had ceased to play with dolls; “a large country, basking in the sun’s rays, andhaving a longitude and latitude—matters these you do not comprehend. The country is populous as China, and like that unhappy land, subject to periodical inundations, not of cold water, but of hot water, let loose by the hand of man. This depopulates the land, but nature has so provided that a single prince may alone repair the damage. This reminds me of something I discovered ten years ago in connection with Infusoria, the Rotafera of Cuvier,they”——
“Yes. But the prince, the prince!” cried Anna, fearing lest her father should fall into a reverie and she would hear nothing more.
“The prince,” replied the old professor, giving a touch to his wig, “escaped—thanks to the French Government—from the destroying flood, and he has been brought up without consulting his future, away from his fair realm. He was transported in his undeveloped form to my illustrious predecessor Sacrampe—the inventor of Ducks.
“Jarpeado came here at the request of the Government on a bed of dust, made up of millions of his father’s subjects, embalmed by the Indians of Gualaca, not one of the nymphs of Rubens, not one of Miéris’ pretty girls has been able to dispense with the mummies of this race. Yes, my child, whole populations deck the lips which smile upon or defy you from each canvas. How would you like the freak of some giant painter who would take generations of human beings on his palette, crushing them to produce the colours of an immense fresco? Heaven forbid that it should be so!” Here the professor fell into a profound reverie as was his wont after uttering the word heaven.
The pupil of Granarius, Jules Sauval, entered. If you have ever met one of those modest young fellows devoted to science, knowing much, yet possessing a certain simplicity, which, although charming, does not prevent him from being the most ambitious creature in the world, an innocent who would turn the earth upside down about a hyoïde bone, or a univalve shell. If you have seen a youth of this type, then you know Jules Sauval. He was as candid as he was poor—candour goes when fortune comes.—He venerated Professor Granarius as a father, and admired in him the disciple of the great Geoffroy St. Hilaire. Blessed be science, Jules Sauval would have just been the same, even supposing the professor had no pretty daughter Anna. He was a second Jarpeado alive among the dry bones and débris of antiquity. Just as theCoccus cacti—the subjects of Jarpeado—had been crushed to lend a glow of life to the finest works of art, so the young student identified himself with defunct organisms inorder that science might all the more faithfully picture the forms and colours of pre-historic life. Like Jarpeado, Jules Sauval had his loves, he admired the fair Anna as a perfect type of a highly-organised sensitive animal—so he said.
In common with the professor he was intent upon uniting this red prince to some analogous creature. The men of science had come down to the level of the members of the Chamber of Deputies, and talked them into erecting a spacious hothouse to contain the finest plants of the tropics. Within its glass walls the illustrious professor has found a solitary living specimen of theCoccus cacti—Cochineal—Jarpeado, whose habits they had studied so profoundly as to discover that the prince was endowed with pride of race, and passion of sentiment, opposed to his union with any partner saving a princess of his own vermilion blood.
“Alas! Professor,” exclaimed Jules, “I have just left the glass-house, and all is lost! There is no possibility of uniting Jarpeado to any living creature, he refused theCoccus ficus caricæ. I had them under our best microscope.”
“Ah, you horrid creature!” cried Anna. “This is then a prince of the insect world, and yet his history is interesting. I might have known he was no human being, since you say he will die faithful to his first love.”
“Hush, child,” said Granarius, “I fail to note the difference between dying faithful and unfaithful, when it is a question of dying.”
“You will never understand me, sir,” said Anna, in a tone which startled the mild professor, “and as for you, Mr. Jules, all your science and all your charms will never tempt the prince to prove unfaithful. You, sir, shall never be capable of love such as his. A little less science and a trifle more common sense would have suggested keeping him among the dust of his defunct ancestors, where, perchance, he left his living partner, or will find another of red-royal blood.”
The professor and his pupil elated by this marvellous suggestion hastened to replace Jarpeado in the dust from which he had been taken.
Alas! sighed Anna, Jules loves me not, else he would have lingered with me to tell his love. I made the path clear for him. Yet he perceived it not, but has gone with my father to speculate on the introduction of this scarletCoccus cactidynasty into Algeria. Following them to the large hothouse in the Jardin des Plantes, Annaobserved her father consigning the small paper ofCoccus cactidust into the centre of the first nopal that had flowered.
A jealous Englishman, witness of this scientific operation, remarked in passing, “This old fool uses the plant as a portfolio!”
“Heat the house well,” cried Granarius, as he fell into a profound reverie, leaving his daughter and Jules to talk of love, or science.
“So, Mr. Jules, you have ceased to love me,” said Anna.
“Nay,” replied Jules, “I do not think you do me justice, but I have come to the conclusion that sentiment, or passion, in all animals, follows a fixed natural law, and being divided between two creatures ought to form a perfect equation.”
“Oh, infernal science! thus to bamboozle a poor brain. Probably your sentiments are established on the equation of dowry, and you have yet to learn what love is, Mr. Jules. If you do not take care, science will claim possession, not only of your soul, but of your body, and you will become a beast like Nebuchadnezzar. History relates that he assumed this form because he devoted seven years to zoology in classing the different species, without once pausing to trim his beard. Six hundred years hence it will be said of certain zoologists that they were advanced types of the Orang-outang who stuck up for their race, and for themselves as examples of progression.”
Jules was called away by the professor, while Anna, turning to a huge microscope, beheld a new world of creatures, invisible to the naked eye. There she saw the Volvoce engaged in a steeple-chase, mounted on an animal making for the winning post. Many elegant Cercairæ were on the course, the prize being infinitely superior to that of the Derby; for the winner was to feast on the Vorticella, at once animals and flowers. Neither Bory, Saint Vincent, nor Müller—that immortal Dame—have taken it upon themselves to decide whether the Vorticella is more plant than animal; had they been bolder they might have drawn valuable conclusions from the man vegetable known to coachmen asmelon.
Anna was soon drawn from the contemplation of this little world to the fortunes of Jarpeado, who, in her vivid imagination, had become the hero of a fairy tale. He had at last discovered the object of his affections in a nursling of his tribe, over whom he watched as she lay in state beneath a perfumed pavilion, awaiting the incarnation common alike to heathen deities and zoological creatures. They were the Paul and Virginia of insect life. The pavilion was guarded by soldiersattired in madder. The prince proved himself a wise general, as well as ardent lover, for in order to protect his domain against a powerful-winged foe called the Muscicapa, he ordered all his intelligent subjects to throw themselves in such numbers on the monster, as to choke him,or else satisfy his hunger. For this service he promised decorations and titles; that was all he had to offer. The breast of Anna was filled with admiration of these cheap and valuable political inventions.
Invisible nuns shrouded the little princess in grey veils, so that nothing but her head was seen as she lay in state, awaiting her new winged life. Anna witnessed the joy of Paul, when, like Venus rising from the waves, Virginia quitted her winding sheet, and like Milton’s Eve—who is a real English Eve—smiled on the light, and looking at Paul, exclaimed, “Oh!”—this superlative of English astonishment. The prince, with a slave’s submission, offered to show the fair one the path of life, across the hills and dales of his empire.
Virginia, growing in loveliness and in the prince’s affections, returned his care with caresses, while Paul ministered to her wants, bringing the ripest fruits for her food; and they at last embarked in a little skiff, on a lake bright as a diamond, and hardly larger than a drop of water. Virginia was arrayed in a bridal robe of brilliant stripes and great richness, her appearance recalling the famous Esmeralda, celebrated by Victor Hugo, only Esmeralda was a woman, and Virginia an angel who would not for all the world have loved a Marshal of the court, far less a Colonel. Her whole affections were consecrated to Jarpeado. Happy pair, thought Anna, but alas! what came of it all? After the wedding came family cares, and a brood destined to make the fame and fortune of her much-loved, but faithless Jules.
A few evenings later, Anna was frowning on her father, and saying toJules—
“You are no longer faithful to the palm-house, so much gazing on the Cochineal has affected your taste. You are about to marry a red-haired girl, with large feet, without any figure, devoid alike of ideas and manners, freckled. She wears dyed dresses, and will wound your pride twenty times a day, and your ears with her sonatas.”
She opened her piano and began to play with such feeling, that the Spiders remained pensive in their webs on Granarius’ ceiling, and the flowers put their heads in at the window to listen.
“Ah me!” said Anna, “animals have more sense than the wise men who preserve them in glass-cases.”
Jules left the room, sad at heart, for the talent, beauty, and brightness of this good soul was struggling with the concert of vulgar coins which his red-haired bride was bringing to his door.
“Ah!” exclaimed Professor Granarius, “what have we here in the papers? Listen, Anna.
“ ‘Thanks to the efforts of the learned Professor Granarius, assisted by his clever pupil Jules Sauval, ten grains of cochineal have been obtained on the Nopal in the great palm-house. Doubtless this culture will flourish in our African possessions, and will free us from the tribute we pay to the new world. Thus the expense of the great palm-house has been justified—against which opposition was not slow to make itself heard—but the costly structure will yet render many valuable services to French commerce and agriculture. M. J. Sauval is named Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.’ ”
“M. Jules behaves badly to us,” said Anna, “for you have commenced the history of theCoccus cacti, and he has impudently takenup”——
“Bah!” said the professor, “he is my pupil.”