piped her plaintive wail, appealing to me by her familiar term,
"Minnie, Minnie, me very poorly!" till my heart ached. I descended to
ascertain why he did not come. The corridor was empty. Whither was he
vanished? Was he with Madame in the _salle-a-manger?_ Impossible: I had
left her but a short time since, dressing in her own chamber. I
listened. Three pupils were just then hard at work practising in three
proximate rooms--the dining-room and the greater and lesser
drawing-rooms, between which and the corridor there was but the
portress's cabinet communicating with the salons, and intended
originally for a boudoir. Farther off, at a fourth instrument in the
oratory, a whole class of a dozen or more were taking a singing lesson,
and just then joining in a "barcarole" (I think they called it),
whereof I yet remember these words "fraiche," "brise," and "Venise."
Under these circumstances, what could I hear? A great deal, certainly;
had it only been to the purpose.

Yes; I heard a giddy treble laugh in the above-mentioned little
cabinet, close by the door of which I stood--that door half-unclosed; a
man's voice in a soft, deep, pleading tone, uttered some, words,
whereof I only caught the adjuration, "For God's sake!" Then, after a
second's pause, forth issued Dr. John, his eye full shining, but not
with either joy or triumph; his fair English cheek high-coloured; a
baffled, tortured, anxious, and yet a tender meaning on his brow.

The open door served me as a screen; but had I been full in his way, I
believe he would have passed without seeing me. Some mortification,
some strong vexation had hold of his soul: or rather, to write my
impressions now as I received them at the time I should say some
sorrow, some sense of injustice. I did not so much think his pride was
hurt, as that his affections had been wounded--cruelly wounded, it
seemed to me. But who was the torturer? What being in that house had
him so much in her power? Madame I believed to be in her chamber; the
room whence he had stepped was dedicated to the portress's sole use;
and she, Rosine Matou, an unprincipled though pretty little French
grisette, airy, fickle, dressy, vain, and mercenary--it was not,
surely, to _her_ hand he owed the ordeal through which he seemed to
have passed?

But while I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke
out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I
glanced in, doubting my senses. Th