me.

Blushing with pleasure and shame together, I accepted what could not be
declined, and proceeded to take leave of my kind host and his friends.
Cordial greetings, and flattering wishes soon to meet again, met me on
every side, and I retired actually overwhelmed with civil attentions.

"Do we pass by your quarter, Monsieur?" said his Royal Highness, as I
took my seat in the carriage.

I would have given all my worldly wealth, and expectations to boot, to
be able to say that I lived in the Place Vendome or the Rue Royale; but
there was no help for it, the murder would out one day, since my host
knew my address; and with an easy, unabashed air, I said that I lodged
in the Rue de la Forge, near the Mount St. Parnasse.

The Prince bowed, and took no notice of the announcement; but I
thought that I could read a very peculiar twinkle in the eye of the
aide-de-camp. I might have easily been mistaken, however, for I
felt myself on my trial, and thought everything an accusation. How
gratuitously I tortured myself, subsequent knowledge of life has
repeatedly convinced me; for while to some upstart rich man, the
acknowledgment of my humble abode would have been a shock sufficient
to sever us forever, to the Prince the matter had no other significance
than that it suited my means, with which, whether ample or the reverse,
he had no right to meddle. Indeed, I was not sorry to remain in
doubt upon the fact, since in the difficult negotiation between the
aide-de-camp and the coachman, who had never so much as heard of my
unhappy street, his Royal Highness never evinced any surprise whatever,
but sat patiently to the end of the discussion, without vouchsafing even
a word upon the subject.

"This must be the house, number 21,7'8," said the chasseur, at length;
and we drew up at the well-known door, where the old porter sat reading
on one side, while his wife was peeling carrots at the other.

It was the first moment of confusion I suffered, since I had left the
same spot; but my cheek was in a flame as the lacquey let down the
steps, and offered me his arm to descend. The lowly veneration of the
old porter, as he stared at the royal liveries and the emblazoned panels
of the carriage, was but a sorry compensation for the mock servility of
the chasseur, whose eyes seemed to look through into my very heart,
so that I actually did not hear the parting words of the Prince as the
equipage drove away.

Curious anomaly! the half-inso