d which is rather soothed than irritated by
misconstruction; and in quarters where we can never be rightly known,
we take pleasure, I think, in being consummately ignored. What honest
man, on being casually taken for a housebreaker, does not feel rather
tickled than vexed at the mistake?

CHAPTER XI.

THE PORTRESS'S CABINET.

It was summer and very hot. Georgette, the youngest of Madame Beck's
children, took a fever. Desiree, suddenly cured of her ailments, was,
together with Fifine, packed off to Bonne-Maman, in the country, by way
of precaution against infection. Medical aid was now really needed, and
Madame, choosing to ignore the return of Dr. Pillule, who had been at
home a week, conjured his English rival to continue his visits. One or
two of the pensionnaires complained of headache, and in other respects
seemed slightly to participate in Georgette's ailment. "Now, at last,"
I thought, "Dr. Pillule must be recalled: the prudent directress will
never venture to permit the attendance of so young a man on the pupils."

The directress was very prudent, but she could also be intrepidly
venturous. She actually introduced Dr. John to the school-division of
the premises, and established him in attendance on the proud and
handsome Blanche de Melcy, and the vain, flirting Angelique, her
friend. Dr. John, I thought, testified a certain gratification at this
mark of confidence; and if discretion of bearing could have justified
the step, it would by him have been amply justified. Here, however, in
this land of convents and confessionals, such a presence as his was not
to be suffered with impunity in a "pensionnat de demoiselles." The
school gossiped, the kitchen whispered, the town caught the rumour,
parents wrote letters and paid visits of remonstrance. Madame, had she
been weak, would now have been lost: a dozen rival educational houses
were ready to improve this false step--if false step it were--to her
ruin; but Madame was not weak, and little Jesuit though she might be,
yet I clapped the hands of my heart, and with its voice cried "brava!"
as I watched her able bearing, her skilled management, her temper and
her firmness on this occasion.

She met the alarmed parents with a good-humoured, easy grace for nobody
matched her in, I know not whether to say the possession or the
assumption of a certain "rondeur et franchise de bonne femme;" which on
various occasions gained the point aimed at with instant and compl