e on
business connected with the pensionnat, and, even at that late hour,
she let me in, without a word of reluctance, or a moment of hesitation.

The next moment I sat in a cold, glittering salon, with porcelain
stove, unlit, and gilded ornaments, and polished floor. A pendule on
the mantel-piece struck nine o'clock.

A quarter of an hour passed. How fast beat every pulse in my frame! How
I turned cold and hot by turns! I sat with my eyes fixed on the door--a
great white folding-door, with gilt mouldings: I watched to see a leaf
move and open. All had been quiet: not a mouse had stirred; the white
doors were closed and motionless.

"You ayre Engliss?" said a voice at my elbow. I almost bounded, so
unexpected was the sound; so certain had I been of solitude.

No ghost stood beside me, nor anything of spectral aspect; merely a
motherly, dumpy little woman, in a large shawl, a wrapping-gown, and a
clean, trim nightcap.

I said I was English, and immediately, without further prelude, we fell
to a most remarkable conversation. Madame Beck (for Madame Beck it
was--she had entered by a little door behind me, and, being shod with
the shoes of silence, I had heard neither her entrance nor
approach)--Madame Beck had exhausted her command of insular speech when
she said, "You ayre Engliss," and she now proceeded to work away
volubly in her own tongue. I answered in mine. She partly understood
me, but as I did not at all understand her--though we made together an
awful clamour (anything like Madame's gift of utterance I had not
hitherto heard or imagined)--we achieved little progress. She rang, ere
long, for aid; which arrived in the shape of a "maitresse," who had
been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect
adept in the English language. A bluff little personage this maitresse
was--Labassecourienne from top to toe: and how she did slaughter the
speech of Albion! However, I told her a plain tale, which she
translated. I told her how I had left my own country, intent on
extending my knowledge, and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn
my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading;
how I would be a child's-nurse, or a lady's-maid, and would not refuse
even housework adapted to my strength. Madame heard this; and,
questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear:

"Il n'y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d'entreprises," said she:
"sont-elles donc intrepide