the child into the world. The
dangers of this enterprise do not concern us: only, you must obey us,
otherwise the lover, who is sitting opposite to you in this carriage,
and who does not understand a word of French, will kill you on the least
rash movement."

"'"And who are you?" I asked, feeling for the speaker's hand, for her
arm was inside the sleeve of a soldier's uniform.

"'"I am my lady's waiting-woman," said she, "and ready to reward you
with my own person if you show yourself gallant and helpful in our
necessities."

"'"Gladly," said I, seeing that I was inevitably started on a perilous
adventure.

"'Under favor of the darkness, I felt whether the person and figure of
the girl were in keeping with the idea I had formed of her from her tone
of voice. The good soul had, no doubt, made up her mind from the first
to accept all the chances of this strange act of kidnapping, for she
kept silence very obligingly, and the coach had not been more than ten
minutes on the way when she accepted and returned a very satisfactory
kiss. The lover, who sat opposite to me, took no offence at an
occasional quite involuntary kick; as he did not understand French, I
conclude he paid no heed to them.

"'"I can be your mistress on one condition only," said the woman, in
reply to the nonsense I poured into her ear, carried away by the fervor
of an improvised passion, to which everything was unpropitious.

"'"And what is it?"

"'"That you will never attempt to find out whose servant I am. If I am
to go to you, it must be at night, and you must receive me in the dark."

"'"Very good," said I.

"'We had got as far as this, when the carriage drew up under a garden
wall.

"'"You must allow me to bandage your eyes," said the maid. "You can lean
on my arm, and I will lead you."

"'She tied a handkerchief over my eyes, fastening it in a tight knot at
the back of my head. I heard the sound of a key being cautiously fitted
to the lock of a little side door by the speechless lover who had sat
opposite to me. In a moment the waiting-woman, whose shape was slender,
and who walked with an elegant jauntiness'--_meneho_, as they call it,"
Monsieur Gravier explained in a superior tone, "a word which describes
the swing which women contrive to give a certain part of their dress
that shall be nameless.--'The waiting-woman'--it is the surgeon-major
who is speaking," the narrator went on--"'led me along the gravel walks
of a large garden,