e other passengers had
lingered in the rear with the conductor, who had pointed out a little
_auberge_ among some trees. We here saw a man preceding us upon the road
carrying a little bundle at the end of a stick over his shoulder: he
seemed to advance painfully. Our attention was attracted--I scarcely knew
why. He paused a moment--then went on with an uncertain step--paused again,
staggered forward, and fell on his face just as we came up. Mlle.
Nathalie, with a presence of mind that surprised me, had her
smelling-bottle out in an instant, and was soon engaged in restoring the
unfortunate traveller to consciousness. I assisted as well as I was able,
and trust that my good-will may atone for my awkardness. Nathalie did
every thing; and, just as the diligence reached us, was gazing with
delight on the languid opening of a pair of as fine eyes as I have ever
seen, and supporting in her lap a head covered with beautiful curls. Even
at that moment, as I afterwards remembered, she looked upon the young man
as a thing over which she had acquired a right of property. "He is going
our way," said she: "let us lift him into the diligence."

"A beggarly Parisian; yo, yo!" quoth the postilion as he passed, clacking
his long whip.

"Who will answer for his fare?" inquired the conductor.

"I will," replied Nathalie, taking the words out of my mouth.

In a few minutes the young man, who looked bewildered and could not speak,
was safely stowed among Nathalie's other parcels; and the crest of the
hill being gained, we began rolling rapidly down a steep descent. The
little old maid, though in a perfect ecstasy of delight--the incident
evidently appeared to her quite an adventure--behaved with remarkable
prudence. While I was puzzling my head to guess by what disease this poor
young man had been attacked, she was getting ready the remedies that
appeared to her the most appropriate, in the shape of some excellent cakes
and a bottle of good wine, which she fished out of her huge basket. Her
_protege_, made tame by hunger, allowed himself to be treated like a
child. First she gave him a very small sip of Burgundy, then a diminutive
fragment of cake; and then another sip and another piece of cake--insisting
on his eating very slowly. Being perfectly useless, I looked quietly on,
and smiled to see the suhmissiveness with which this fine, handsome fellow
allowed himself to be fed by the fussy old maid, and how he kept his eyes
fixed upon her