ot pass there, they send you relays upon
the road. Thus I knew very well this post-mistress, who mixed herself
more in the business than her husband, and who has herself related to me
this adventure more than once. She did all she could, uselessly, to
obtain some explanation upon these alarms. All that she could unravel
was that the strangers were Englishmen, and in a violent excitement about
something, that something very important was at stake,--and that they
meditated mischief. She fancied thereupon that the Pretender was in
question; resolved to save him; mentally arranged her plans, and
fortunately enough executed them.

In order to succeed she devoted herself to the service of these
gentlemen, refused them nothing, appeared quite satisfied, and promised
that they should infallibly be informed. She persuaded them of this so
thoroughly, that Douglas went away without saying where, except to this
third horseman just arrived, but it was close at hand; so that he might
be warned in time. He took one of his valets with him; the other
remained with the horseman to wait and watch.

Another man much embarrassed the post-mistress; nevertheless, she laid
her plans. She proposed to the horseman to drink something, because when
he arrived Douglas had left the table. She served him in her best
manner, and with her best wine, and kept him at table as long as she
could, anticipating all his orders. She had placed a valet, in whom she
could trust, as guard, with orders simply to appear, without a word, if
he saw a chaise; and her resolution was to lock up the Englishman and his
servant, and to give their horses to the chaise if it came. But it came
not, and the Englishman grew tired of stopping at table. Then she
manoeuvred so well that she persuaded him to go and lie down, and to
count upon her, her people, and upon the valet Douglas had left. The
Englishman told this valet not to quit the threshold of the house, and to
inform him as soon as the chaise appeared. He then suffered himself to
be led to the back of the house, in order to lie down. The post-
mistress, immediately after, goes to one of her friends in a by-street,
relates her adventure and her suspicions, makes the friend agree to
receive and secrete in her dwelling the person she expected, sends for an
ecclesiastic, a relative of them both, and in whom she could repose
confidence, who came and lent an Abbe's dress and wig to match. This
done, Madame L'Hospital returns