begins to feel quite friendly
towards you. He hopes you won't miss him now that he has gone; he begs
to apologize for any little trouble he may have given you. He is afraid
he rather inconvenienced you once when he came upon you in the grenier,
just as you were reading a letter seemingly of the most special
interest; but he could not resist the temptation to give you a start,
you appeared so wonderfully taken up with your correspondent. En
revanche, he says you once frightened him by rushing in for a dress or
a shawl, or some other chiffon, at the moment when he had struck a
light, and was going to take a quiet whiff of his cigar, while waiting
for me.

"Do you begin to comprehend by this time that M. le Comte de Hamal was
the nun of the attic, and that he came to see your humble servant? I
will tell you how he managed it. You know he has the entree of the
Athenee, where two or three of his nephews, the sons of his eldest
sister, Madame de Melcy, are students. You know the court of the
Athenee is on the other side of the high wall bounding your walk, the
allee defendue. Alfred can climb as well as he can dance or fence: his
amusement was to make the escalade of our pensionnat by mounting, first
the wall; then--by the aid of that high tree overspreading the grand
berceau, and resting some of its boughs on the roof of the lower
buildings of our premises--he managed to scale the first classe and the
grand salle. One night, by the way, he fell out of this tree, tore down
some of the branches, nearly broke his own neck, and after all, in
running away, got a terrible fright, and was nearly caught by two
people, Madame Beck and M. Emanuel, he thinks, walking in the alley.
From the grande salle the ascent is not difficult to the highest block
of building, finishing in the great garret. The skylight, you know, is,
day and night, left half open for air; by the skylight he entered.
Nearly a year ago I chanced to tell him our legend of the nun; that
suggested his romantic idea of the spectral disguise, which I think you
must allow he has very cleverly carried out.

"But for the nun's black gown and white veil, he would have been caught
again and again both by you and that tiger-Jesuit, M. Paul. He thinks
you both capital ghost-seers, and very brave. What I wonder at is,
rather your secretiveness than your courage. How could you endure the
visitations of that long spectre, time after time, without crying out,
telling everybody, a