ith these
three prime characters in a piece, some pathetic tragedy is going to be
enacted? You, Miss Hetty, are about to guess that the woman saved me?"

"Why, of course she did!" cries mamma.

"What else is she good for?" says Hetty.

"You, Miss Theo, have painted her already as a dark beauty--is it not
so? A swift huntress--"

"Diana with a baby," says the Colonel.

"--Who scours the plain with her nymphs, who brings down the game with
her unerring bow, who is queen of the forest--and I see by your looks
that you think I am madly in love with her?"

"Well, I suppose she is an interesting creature, Mr. George?" says Theo,
with a blush.

"What think you of a dark beauty, the colour of new mahogany with long
straight black hair, which was usually dressed with a hair-oil or
pomade by no means pleasant to approach, with little eyes, with high
cheek-bones, with a flat nose, sometimes ornamented with a ring, with
rows of glass beads round her tawny throat, her cheeks and forehead
gracefully tattooed, a great love of finery, and inordinate passion
for--oh! must I own it?"

"For coquetry. I know you are going to say that!" says Miss Hetty.

"For whisky, my dear Miss Hester--in which appetite my gaoler partook;
so that I have often sate by, on the nights when I was in favour with
Monsieur Museau, and seen him and his poor companion hob-and-nobbing
together until they could scarce hold the noggin out of which they
drank. In these evening entertainments, they would sing, they would
dance, they would fondle, they would quarrel, and knock the cans and
furniture about; and, when I was in favour, I was admitted to share
their society, for Museau, jealous of his dignity, or not willing that
his men should witness his behaviour, would allow none of them to be
familiar with him.

"Whilst the result of the trapper's mission to my home was yet
uncertain, and Museau and I myself expected the payment of my ransom, I
was treated kindly enough, allowed to crawl about the fort, and even to
go into the adjoining fields and gardens, always keeping my parole, and
duly returning before gun-fire. And I exercised a piece of hypocrisy,
for which, I hope, you will hold me excused. When my leg was sound (the
ball came out in the winter, after some pain and inflammation, and the
wound healed up presently), I yet chose to walk as if I was disabled
and a cripple; I hobbled on two sticks, and cried Ah! and Oh! at every
minute, hoping that a da