"

"Dat name! and vat you ave for say to dat name? 'Tis ver goot name;
and so is Voissart--dat is ver goot name too. My daughter, Mademoiselle
Moissart, she marry von Monsieur Voissart,--and de name is bot ver
respectaable name."

"Moissart?" I exclaimed, "and Voissart! Why, what is it you mean?"

"Vat I mean?--I mean Moissart and Voissart; and for de matter of dat, I
mean Croissart and Froisart, too, if I only tink proper to mean it.
My daughter's daughter, Mademoiselle Voissart, she marry von Monsieur
Croissart, and den again, my daughter's grande daughter, Mademoiselle
Croissart, she marry von Monsieur Froissart; and I suppose you say dat
dat is not von ver respectaable name.-"

"Froissart!" said I, beginning to faint, "why, surely you don't say
Moissart, and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart?"

"Yes," she replied, leaning fully back in her chair, and stretching
out her lower limbs at great length; "yes, Moissart, and Voissart, and
Croissart, and Froissart. But Monsieur Froissart, he vas von ver big vat
you call fool--he vas von ver great big donce like yourself--for he lef
la belle France for come to dis stupide Amerique--and ven he get here
he went and ave von ver stupide, von ver, ver stupide sonn, so I hear,
dough I not yet av ad de plaisir to meet vid him--neither me nor my
companion, de Madame Stephanie Lalande. He is name de Napoleon
Bonaparte Froissart, and I suppose you say dat dat, too, is not von ver
respectable name."

Either the length or the nature of this speech, had the effect of
working up Mrs. Simpson into a very extraordinary passion indeed; and
as she made an end of it, with great labor, she lumped up from her chair
like somebody bewitched, dropping upon the floor an entire universe
of bustle as she lumped. Once upon her feet, she gnashed her gums,
brandished her arms, rolled up her sleeves, shook her fist in my face,
and concluded the performance by tearing the cap from her head, and with
it an immense wig of the most valuable and beautiful black hair,
the whole of which she dashed upon the ground with a yell, and there
trammpled and danced a fandango upon it, in an absolute ecstasy and
agony of rage.

Meantime I sank aghast into the chair which she had vacated. "Moissart
and Voissart!" I repeated, thoughtfully, as she cut one of her
pigeon-wings, and "Croissart and Froissart!" as she completed
another--"Moissart and Voissart and Croissart and Napoleon Bonaparte
Froissart!--why, you