ual who he said might be very useful to me in
London. He was a man of forty, and styled himself son of the late
Theodore, the pretender to the throne of Corsica, who had died miserably
in London fourteen years before, after having been imprisoned for debt
for seven years. I should have done better if I had never gone to
Vauxhall that evening.

The entrance-fee at Vauxhall was half the sum charged at Ranelagh, but in
spite of that the amusements were of the most varied kinds. There was
good fare, music, walks in solitary alleys, thousands of lamps, and a
crowd of London beauties, both high and low.

In the midst of all these pleasures I was dull, because I had no girl to
share my abode or my good table, and make it dear to me. I had been in
London for six weeks; ana in no other place had I been alone for so long.

My house seemed intended for keeping a mistress with all decency, and as
I had the virtue of constancy a mistress was all I wanted to make me
happy. But how was I to find a woman who should be the equal of those
women I had loved before? I had already seen half a hundred of girls,
whom the town pronounced to be pretty, and who did not strike me as even
passable. I thought the matter over continually, and at last an odd idea
struck me.

I called the old housekeeper, and told her by the servant, who acted as
my interpreter, that I wanted to let the second or third floor for the
sake of company; and although I was at perfect liberty to do what I liked
with the house, I would give her half-a-guinea a week extra. Forthwith I
ordered her to affix the following bill to the window:

Second or third floor to be let, furnished, to a young lady speaking
English and French, who receives no visitors, either by day or night.

The old Englishwoman, who had seen something of the world, began to laugh
so violently when the document was translated to her that I thought she
would have choked.

"What are you laughing at, my worthy woman?"

"Because this notice is a laughing matter."

"I suppose you think I shall have no applications?"

"Not at all, the doorstep will be crowded from morn to night, but I shall
leave it all to Fanny. Only tell me how much to ask."

"I will arrange about the rent in my interview with the young lady. I
don't think I shall have so many enquiries, for the young lady is to
speak French and English, and also to be respectable. She must not
receive any visits, not even from her father and mother