my
men; and while I believed that my character was above the scandal of
either pusillanimity or desertion, it still remained at the mercy of
all.

But chance came to my relief. It happened that I had unconsciously won
the particular regard of one of the Beguines who attended the hospital;
and my _tristesse_, which she termed 'effrayante,' one evening attracted
her peculiar notice. Let not my vanity be called in question; for my
fair admirer was at least fifty years old, and was about the figure and
form of one of her country churns, although her name was Juliet! Pretty
as the name was, the Beguine had not an atom of the poetic about her.
Romance troubled her not. Yet with a face like the full moon, and a pile
of petticoats which would have made a dowdy of the "Belvedere Diana,"
she was a capital creature. Juliet, fat as she was, had the natural
frolic of a squirrel; she was everywhere, and knew every thing, and did
every thing for every body; her tongue and her feet were constantly
busy; and I scarcely knew which was the better emblem of the perpetual
motion. My paleness was peculiarly distressing to her; "it hurt her
feelings;" it also hurt her honour; for she had been famous for her
nursing, and as she told me, with her plump hands upon her still plumper
hips, and her head thrown back with an air of conscious merit, "she had
saved more than the doctors had killed." I had some reluctance to tell
her the cause of my _tristesse_; for I knew her zeal, and I dreaded her
plunging into some hazard with the authorities. But who has ever been
able to keep a secret, where it was the will of the sex to extort it?
Juliet obtained mine before she left the ward for the night; and desired
me to give her a letter, which she pledged herself to transmit to my
regiment. But this I determined to refuse, and I kept my determination.
I had no desire to see my "fat friend" suspended from the pillars of the
portico; or to hear of her, at least, being given over to the mercies of
the provost-marshal. We parted, half in anger on her side, and with
stern resolution on mine.

During the day Juliet was not forthcoming, and her absence produced,
what the French call, a "lively sensation"--which, in nine instances out
of ten, means an intolerable sense of ennui--in the whole establishment.
I shared the general uneasiness, and at length began to cast glances
towards the gate, where, though I was not exactly prepared to see the
corpulent virtues o