ead. When it was over I went up to my room where
I was waited on by the pretty maid, who performed her duties with that
grace peculiar to the French soubrette, and told me that as I had become
her mistress's chambermaid it was only right that she should be my valet.
Her mirth was infectious, and I tried to make her sit down on my knee;
but she fled away like a deer, telling me that I ought to take care of
myself if I wanted to cut a good figure at five o'clock the next day. She
was wrong, but appearances were certainly against us, and it is well
known that servants do not give their masters and mistresses the benefit
of the doubt.

At five o'clock in the morning I found Madame du Rumain nearly dressed
when I went into her room, and we immediately went into another, from
which the rising sun might have been see if the "Hotel de Bouillon" had
not been in the way, but that, of course, was a matter of no consequence.
Madame du Rumain performed the ceremonies with all the dignity of an
ancient priestess of Baal. She then sat down to her piano, telling me
that to find some occupation for the long morning of nine hours would
prove the hardest of all the rules, for she did not dine till two, which
was then the fashionable hour. We had a meat breakfast without coffee,
which I had proscribed, and I left her, promising to call again before I
left Paris.

When I got back to my inn, I found my brother there looking very uneasy
at my absence at such an early hour. When I saw him I cried,--

"Rome or Paris, which is it to be?"

"Rome," he replied, cringingly.

"Wait in the antechamber. I will do your business for you."

When I had finished I called him in, and found my other brother and his
wife, who said they had come to ask me to give them a dinner.

"Welcome!" said I. "You are come just in time to see me deal with the
abbe, who has resolved at last to go to Rome and to follow my
directions."

I sent Clairmont to the diligence office, and told him to book a place
for Lyons; and then I wrote out five bills of exchange, of five louis
each, on Lyons, Turin, Genoa, Florence, and Rome.

"Who is to assure me that these bills will be honoured?"

"I assure you, blockhead. If you don't like them you can leave them."

Clairmont brought the ticket for the diligence and I gave it to the abbe,
telling him roughly to be gone.

"But I may dine with you, surely?" said he.

"No, I have done with you. Go and dine with Possano, as you a