ou? why, of course not; they were secret instructions. I
have obeyed one set, and now I come to the other; and there is the
difficulty, being a kind of warfare I know nothing about."

"It must be savage warfare, then," suggested the lady politely.

"Not a bit of it. Now, who would have thought I was such a coward?"

Josephine was mystified; however, she made a shrewd guess. "Do you
fear a repulse from any one of us? Then, I suppose, you meditate some
extravagant act of generosity."

"Not I."

"Of delicacy, then."

"Just the reverse. Confound the young dog! why is he not here to help
me?"

"But, after all," suggested Josephine, "you have only to carry out his
instructions."

"That is true! that is true! but when a fellow is a coward, a poltroon,
and all that sort of thing."

This repeated assertion of cowardice on the part of the living Damascus
blade that stood bolt-upright before her, struck Josephine as so funny
that she laughed merrily, and bade him fancy it was only a fort he
was attacking instead of the terrible Josephine; whom none but heroes
feared, she assured him.

This encouragement, uttered in jest, was taken in earnest. The soldier
thanked her, and rallied visibly at the comparison. "All right," said
he, "as you say, it is only a fort--so--mademoiselle!"

"Monsieur!"

"Hum! will you lend me your hand for a moment?"

"My hand! what for? there," and she put it out an inch a minute. He took
it, and inspected it closely.

"A charming hand; the hand of a virtuous woman?"

"Yes," said Josephine as cool as a cucumber, too sublimely and absurdly
innocent even to blush.

"Is it your own?"

"Sir!" She blushed at that, I can tell you.

"Because if it was, I would ask you to give it me. (I've fired the first
shot anyway.)"

Josephine whipped her hand off his palm, where it lay like cream spilt
on a trencher.

"Ah! I see; you are not free: you have a lover."

"No, no!" cried Josephine in distress; "I love nobody but my mother and
sister: I never shall."

"Your mother," cried Raynal; "that reminds me; he told me to ask her;
by Jove, I think he told me to ask her first;" and Raynal up with his
scabbard and was making off.

Josephine begged him to do nothing of the kind.

"I can save you the trouble," said she.

"Ah, but my instructions! my instructions!" cried the military pedant,
and ran off into the house, and left Josephine "planted there," as they
say in France.

Raynal demanded a p