dingly abashed at the
reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply. But
another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful girl of
the little parlor.

"Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!" she exclaimed, "but there was really
much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugenie Salsafette. She
was a very beautiful and painfully modest young lady, who thought the
ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and wished to dress herself,
always, by getting outside instead of inside of her clothes. It is a
thing very easily done, after all. You have only to do so--and then
so--so--so--and then so--so--so--and then so--so--and then--

"Mon dieu! Ma'm'selle Salsafette!" here cried a dozen voices at once.
"What are you about?--forbear!--that is sufficient!--we see, very
plainly, how it is done!--hold! hold!" and several persons were already
leaping from their seats to withhold Ma'm'selle Salsafette from putting
herself upon a par with the Medicean Venus, when the point was very
effectually and suddenly accomplished by a series of loud screams, or
yells, from some portion of the main body of the chateau.

My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but the rest
of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of reasonable people
so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all grew as pale as so many
corpses, and, shrinking within their seats, sat quivering and gibbering
with terror, and listening for a repetition of the sound. It came
again--louder and seemingly nearer--and then a third time very loud, and
then a fourth time with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent
dying away of the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately
regained, and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to
inquire the cause of the disturbance.

"A mere bagtelle," said Monsieur Maillard. "We are used to these things,
and care really very little about them. The lunatics, every now and
then, get up a howl in concert; one starting another, as is sometimes
the case with a bevy of dogs at night. It occasionally happens, however,
that the concerto yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort
at breaking loose, when, of course, some little danger is to be
apprehended."

"And how many have you in charge?"

"At present we have not more than ten, altogether."

"Principally females, I presume?"

"Oh, no--every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell you."

"Indeed! I have