by we zee for zat maid, und about zat udder lady,
by und by also," and so departed at a run with a great rattling of
starch and fluttering of cap ribbons; for Jules, the head cook, already
in the first stages of delirium tremens, was making himself interesting
to the guests by trying to jump into the fountain basin to save the
lives of the tiny ducklings, who were happily swimming there, and Madame
F---- was sorely needed.

Yes, I laughed--laughed honestly at the helpless wrath of my friends,
and pretended to laugh at the mistake; but all the time I was saying to
myself, "Had I really been acting as maid, how cruelly I should have
suffered under that contemptuous glance and from that withheld bow of
recognition." She had found me well-dressed, intelligent, and
well-mannered; yet she had insulted me, because she believed me to be a
lady's maid. No wonder women find service bitter.

We had retired from the breakfast room and were arranging our plans for
the day, when a sort of whirlwind came rushing through the hall, the
door sprang open almost without a pronounced permission, and Madame
F---- flung herself into the room, caught my hands in hers, pressed them
to her heart, to her lips, to her brow, wept in German, in French, in
English, and called distractedly upon "Himmel!" "Ciel!" and "Heaven!"
But she found her apologies so coldly received by my friends that she
was glad to turn the flood of her remorse in my direction, and for very
shame of the scene she was making I assured her the mistake was quite
pardonable--as it was. It was her manner that was almost unpardonable.
Then she added to my discomfort by bursting out with fulsome praise of
me as an actress; how she had seen me and wept, and so on and on, she
being only at last walked and talked gently out of the room.

But that was not the end of her remorse. A truly French bouquet with its
white paper petticoat arrived in about an hour, "From the so madly
mistooken Madame F----," the card read, and that act of penance was
performed every morning as long as I remained in Paris. But one day she
appealed to the Colonel for pity and sympathy.

"Ah!" said she, "I hav' zee two tr'ubles, zee two sorrows! I hav' zee
grief to vound zee feelin's of zat so fine actrice Americaine--zat ees
one tr'ubles, und den I hav' zee shame to mak' zat grande fool
meestak'--oh, mon Dieu! I tak' her for zee maid, und zare my most great
tr'uble come in! I hav' no one with zee right to keek