y est! Si Madame desire que j'appelle Miss----? Quel nom?
Hein? Meesus Tsch--arch--kott. Mon Dieu----"

Victorine lays down the receiver and comes back flushed into the
room.

"C'est Meesus Arch-tsch-kott qui demande Miss au telephone. She desire
to know if Miss will take the dinner with her. Are they difficult
these English names!"

But English names are not Victorine's sole difficulty. She wrestles
(mentally) from time to time with the butcher and the baker and the
milkman. The milkman, it seems, is "un peu fou." Victorine greets him
in the mornings in voluble French, and he in return bows elaborately
and pretends to drop the milk. We have watched the process from an
upper window. Victorine takes a step backward, her hand flies to her
heart, and, as she afterwards informs us, "her blood gives but a turn"
at this exhibition of British wit. We have been wondering whether it
would be judicious to teach her to say, "Get along with yer."

She is very prolific in "ideas," and seems to be chiefly inspired when
engaged in the uncongenial pastime of cleaning the grate.

"Know you, Miss, that I have an idea, me?"

"No, really, Victorine."

"Yes," says Victorine, mournfully shaking her head, "but only an
idea." Victorine lays down her implements and places her hands on her
hips. "If," she says slowly, "this Meesus Schmeet who was with Mr. and
Miss before my arrival was a German spy, hein?"

"But why, Victorine?"

Victorine assumes an air of owl-like wisdom.

"See here," she says, placing the forefinger of one hand on the thumb
of the other, "first she depart to care for the niece who is
suffering--it is generally the mother, but that imports not. Then,"
counting along her fingers, "during three months she is absent, and,
thirdly," sinking her voice, "she sends for her _malles_, which
contain doubtless--who knows?--plans of London, designs of the
fortresses, and perhaps a telegraphy without wires--Marconi, what do I
know? Mademoiselle must admit that it has the air droll?"

We do our best to allay Victorine's anxiety. She however is not at all
convinced, and evidently reserves to herself full liberty of action to
protect us from German espionage and the effects of our own
guilelessness at a later date.

In the rare moments when not at work she is pensive, but her
imagination is by no means at rest. She gazes languidly out of the
window into "_ce brouillard_," as she fondly calls a slight morning
mist. The sparrows