e glazed bookcase, of which I kept the key, a
volume whose title promised some interest, I sat down to read. The
glass-door of this "classe," or schoolroom, opened into the large
berceau; acacia-boughs caressed its panes, as they stretched across to
meet a rose-bush blooming by the opposite lintel: in this rose-bush
bees murmured busy and happy. I commenced reading. Just as the stilly
hum, the embowering shade, the warm, lonely calm of my retreat were
beginning to steal meaning from the page, vision from my eyes, and to
lure me along the track of reverie, down into some deep dell of
dreamland--just then, the sharpest ring of the street-door bell to
which that much-tried instrument had ever thrilled, snatched me back to
consciousness.

Now the bell had been ringing all the morning, as workmen, or servants,
or _coiffeurs_, or _tailleuses_, went and came on their several
errands. Moreover, there was good reason to expect it would ring all
the afternoon, since about one hundred externes were yet to arrive in
carriages or fiacres: nor could it be expected to rest during the
evening, when parents and friends would gather thronging to the play.
Under these circumstances, a ring--even a sharp ring--was a matter of
course: yet this particular peal had an accent of its own, which chased
my dream, and startled my book from my knee.

I was stooping to pick up this last, when--firm, fast, straight--right
on through vestibule--along corridor, across carre, through first
division, second division, grand salle--strode a step, quick, regular,
intent. The closed door of the first classe--my sanctuary--offered no
obstacle; it burst open, and a paletot and a bonnet grec filled the
void; also two eyes first vaguely struck upon, and then hungrily dived
into me.

"C'est cela!" said a voice. "Je la connais: c'est l'Anglaise. Tant pis.
Toute Anglaise, et, par consequent, toute begueule qu'elle soit--elle
fera mon affaire, ou je saurai pourquoi."

Then, with a certain stern politeness (I suppose he thought I had not
caught the drift of his previous uncivil mutterings), and in a jargon
the most execrable that ever was heard, "Meess----, play you must: I am
planted there."

"What can I do for you, M. Paul Emanuel?" I inquired: for M. Paul
Emanuel it was, and in a state of no little excitement.

"Play you must. I will not have you shrink, or frown, or make the
prude. I read your skull that night you came; I see your moyens: play
you can; pl