little more sombre. Yes, yes!
The ladies might not admire her, but we others--"

He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders in a detestable manner.

"What height was she, monsieur?" I inquired.

"A just height," he answered, "not tall like a camel, nor too short like
a monkey. She would stand an inch or two above your shoulder, monsieur."

It could be no other than my Olivia! She had been living here, then, in
this miserable place, only a month ago; but where could she be now? How
was I to find any trace of her?

"I will make some inquiries from my daughter," said the Frenchman; "when
the establishment was broken up I was ill with the fever, monsieur. We
have fever often here. But she will know--I will ask her."

He returned to me after some time, with the information that the English
demoiselle had been seen in the house of a woman who sold milk,
Mademoiselle Rosalie by name; and he volunteered to accompany me to her
dwelling.

It was a poor-looking house, of one room only, in the same street as the
school; but we found no one there except an old woman, exceedingly deaf,
who told us, after much difficulty in making her understand our object,
that Mademoiselle Rosalie was gone somewhere to nurse a relative, who
was dangerously ill. She had not had any cows of her own, and she had
easily disposed of her small business to this old woman and her
daughter. Did the messieurs want any milk for their families? No. Well,
then, she could not tell us any thing more about Mam'zelle Rosalie; and
she knew nothing of an Englishwoman and a little girl.

I turned away baffled and discouraged; but my new friend was not so
quickly depressed. It was impossible, he maintained, that the English
girl and the child could have left the town unnoticed. He went with me
to all the omnibus bureaus, where we made urgent inquiries concerning
the passengers who had quitted Noireau during the last month. No places
had been taken for Miss Ellen Martineau and the child, for there was no
such name in any of the books. But at each bureau I was recommended to
see the drivers upon their return in the evening; and I was compelled to
give up the pursuit for that day.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.

A SECOND PURSUER.

No wonder there was fever in the town, I thought, as I picked my way
among the heaps of garbage and refuse lying out in the streets. The most
hideous old women I ever saw, wrinkled over every inch of their skin,
blear-eyed, and with e