ou look after my inside, and that I have implicit
confidence in both of you in your respective spheres of action."

"But does Monsieur like sorrel?" Antoinette inquired, anxiously.

"I adore it even," said I, and Antoinette made her exit in triumph.

What a reverential care French women have for the insides of their
masters! At times it is pathetic. Before now, I have thrown dainty
morsels which I could not eat into the fire, so as to avoid hurting
Antoinette's feelings.

I came across her three years ago in a tiny hostelry in a tiny town
in the Loire district. She cooked the dinner and conversed about it
afterwards so touchingly that we soon became united in bonds of the
closest affection. Suddenly some money was stolen; Antoinette, accused,
was dismissed without notice. I had a shrewd suspicion of the thief--a
suspicion which was afterwards completely justified--and indignantly
championed Antoinette's cause.

But Antoinette, coming from a village some eighty miles away, was a
stranger and an alien. I was her only friend. It ended in my inviting
her to come to England, the land of the free and the refuge of the
downtrodden and oppressed, and become my housekeeper. She accepted, with
smiles and tears. And they were great big smiles, that went into creases
all over her fat red face, forming runnels for the great big tears which
dropped off at unexpected angles. She was alone in the world. Her only
son had died during his military service in Madagascar. Although her man
was dead, the law would not regard her as a widow because she had never
been married, and therefore refused to exempt her only son. "_On ne
peut-etre Jeune qu'une fois, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur?_" she said, in
extenuation of her early fault.

"And Jean-Marie," she added, "was as brave a fellow and as devoted a son
as if I had been married by the Saint-Pere himself."

I waved my hand in deprecation and told her it did not matter in the
least. The della Scalas, supreme lords of Verona for many generations,
were every man jack of them so parented. Even William the Conqueror--

"_Tiens_," cried Antoinette, consoled, "and he became Emperor of
Germany--he and Bismarck!"

Antoinette's historical sense is rudimentary. I have not tried since to
develop it.

When I brought my victim of foreign tyranny to Lingfield Terrace,
Stenson, I believe, nearly fainted. He is the correctest of English
valets, and his only vice, I believe, is the accordion, on which
he