kerchief, and
adjusted them again.

But if, in the first instance, there had occurred something which
occasioned me surprise, in the second, this surprise became
elevated into astonishment; and this astonishment was profound--was
extreme--indeed I may say it was horrific. What, in the name of
everything hideous, did this mean? Could I believe my eyes?--could
I?--that was the question. Was that--was that--was that rouge? And were
those--and were those--were those wrinkles, upon the visage of Eugenie
Lalande? And oh! Jupiter, and every one of the gods and goddesses,
little and big! what--what--what--what had become of her teeth? I dashed
the spectacles violently to the ground, and, leaping to my feet, stood
erect in the middle of the floor, confronting Mrs. Simpson, with my arms
set a-kimbo, and grinning and foaming, but, at the same time, utterly
speechless with terror and with rage.

Now I have already said that Madame Eugenie Lalande--that is to say,
Simpson--spoke the English language but very little better than she
wrote it, and for this reason she very properly never attempted to speak
it upon ordinary occasions. But rage will carry a lady to any
extreme; and in the present care it carried Mrs. Simpson to the very
extraordinary extreme of attempting to hold a conversation in a tongue
that she did not altogether understand.

"Vell, Monsieur," said she, after surveying me, in great apparent
astonishment, for some moments--"Vell, Monsieur?--and vat den?--vat de
matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If not like
me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?"

"You wretch!" said I, catching my breath--"you--you--you villainous old
hag!"

"Ag?--ole?--me not so ver ole, after all! Me not one single day more dan
de eighty-doo."

"Eighty-two!" I ejaculated, staggering to the wall--"eighty-two hundred
thousand baboons! The miniature said twenty-seven years and seven
months!"

"To be sure!--dat is so!--ver true! but den de portraite has been take
for dese fifty-five year. Ven I go marry my segonde usbande, Monsieur
Lalande, at dat time I had de portraite take for my daughter by my first
usbande, Monsieur Moissart!"

"Moissart!" said I.

"Yes, Moissart," said she, mimicking my pronunciation, which, to speak
the truth, was none of the best,--"and vat den? Vat you know about de
Moissart?"

"Nothing, you old fright!--I know nothing about him at all; only I had
an ancestor of that name, once upon a time.