t
a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her
gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than
if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.

"Le marmot n'a rien, nest-ce pas?" said she, indicating Georgette with
a jerk of her chin.

"Pas beaucoup," was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with
his pencil some harmless prescription.

"Eh bien!" pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up
his pencil. "And the box--did you get it? Monsieur went off like a
coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him."

"I found it: yes."

"And who threw it, then?" continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the
very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or
courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point
which, for others, seems unattainable!

"That may be my secret," rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no, sort
of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette
character.

"Mais enfin," continued she, nothing abashed, "monsieur knew it was
thrown, since he came to seek it--how did he know?"

"I was attending a little patient in the college near," said he, "and
saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up."

How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician
as then examining "Gustave."

"Ah ca!" pursued Rosine; "il n'y a donc rien la-dessous: pas de
mystere, pas d'amourette, par exemple?"

"Pas plus que sur ma main," responded the doctor, showing his palm.

"Quel dommage!" responded the grisette: "et moi--a qui tout cela
commencait a donner des idees."

"Vraiment! vous en etes pour vos frais," was the doctor's cool
rejoinder.

She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of "moue"
she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and
genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.

"How many times have you opened the door for me within this last
month?" he asked.

"Monsieur ought to have kept count of that," said Rosine, quite readily.

"As if I had not something better to do!" rejoined he; but I saw him
give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then
danced off to answer the door-bell, ringing just now every five
minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.

The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was
not a bad sort of per