dds that she was sent to a boarding-school at Bath, kept
by a Mrs. Olridge, where she had an early _liaison_ with the
drawing-master.

It was perhaps as well for de Mirecourt, and others of his kidney,
that libel actions had not then been added to the perils of
authorship. Still, if they had, Lola would not have troubled to bring
one. To take proceedings in America against a man living in France was
difficult. Also, by this time she was so accustomed to studied
misrepresentation and deliberate falsehoods that she refused to
interfere.

"It doesn't matter what people choose to say about me," she remarked
contemptuously, when she was informed by a friend in Paris of the
liberties being taken with her name.

Although (except when she took it into her own hands) she liked to
keep clear of the law, this was not always possible. Such an instance
occurred in March, 1858, when a Mr. Jobson of New York brought an
action against her in respect of an alleged debt. The proceedings
would appear to have been conducted in a fashion that must have been
peculiar to the time and place; and, in an effort to discredit her,
she was subjected to a cross-examination that would now be described
as "third degree."

"Were you not," began the plaintiff's counsel, "born in Montrose, the
daughter of one Molly Watson?"

When this was denied, he put his next question.

"How many intrigues have you had during your career?"

"None," was the answer.

"We'll see about that, Madam," returned the other, consulting his
brief. "To begin with, were you not the mistress of King Ludwig?"

"You are a vulgar villain," exclaimed Lola indignantly. "I can swear
on the Bible, which I read every night, but you don't, that I never
had what you call an 'intrigue' with him. As a matter of fact, I did
him a lot of good."

"In what way?" enquired the judge, looking interested.

"Well, I moulded his mind to the love of freedom."

"Before you ran off with your first husband," continued counsel, "were
you not employed as a chambermaid?"

"Never," was the emphatic response. "And, let me tell you, Mr.
Attorney, it is not at all a shameful thing to be a chambermaid. If I
had been born one, I should consider myself a much more distinguished
woman than I am."

When her own counsel, coming to the rescue, dubbed Mr. Jobson a
"fellow," there followed, in the words of a reporter, "an unseemly
fracas." From abuse of one another, the rival attorneys took to
fisticuff