protection of this faithful domestic. Vieux Sablon
was a slave to the exigencies of style. Although
with great difficulty he had been dissuaded from
wearing, whenever he took his walks abroad,
the silver-fringed cocked-hat which had been
specially made for him when the emigrants
returned in triumph with the allied troops
in 1814, he insisted on carrying a portentous
cane, with a gilt copper knob and two pendent
acorns, and in tapping this staff on the ground
from time to time as he walked, somewhat after
the manner of the beadle at St. Germain des
Prés during an ecclesiastical procession. The
consequence was, that the gamins, or little blackguard
boys of Paris, who are assuredly not to be
beaten for impudence and cruel acumen by the
youths of any other capital in Europe, were
accustomed to laugh at Vieux Sablons, to call him
"Marquis de Carabas," " Micromegas," "Voltigeur
de Louis Quatorze," and the like, and to
follow him, hooting and jeering, and occasionally
casting mud and stones at him after the unhappily
too frequent fashion of democratic and ill-trained
juvenility. And these proceedings, naturally
leading to "explications" between Vieux Sablons
and the blackguard boys, in which the bamboo
stick took somewhat too vivacious a part, a
tumult was more than once the result, when
Vieux Sablons had unpleasant altercations with
the sergents de ville, not devoid of reference
to a visit to the nearest post or guard house.
Vieux Sablons experienced infinite pride and
pleasure in escorting the "little m'amselle" as
he called Lily—she was always to be little—
but his style stood in his way, and the baroness
would rarely suffer him to confront the perils of
the little blackguards' satire.

At all events, Lily contrived to get a good
bracing walk almost every fine day. At least
twice a week Madame Prudence would look in
to pay her respects to the baroness, and then it
was she who would officiate as Lily's chaperone.
Often, too, the Abbé Chatain would come, but
ecclesiastical etiquette forbade that worthy man
to be seen in the street with a young lady. Once,
when Babette and Lily were walking in the garden
of the Luxembourg, they came upon the
abbé, who was sitting on a bench reading his
breviary. He rose in haste as they approached,
and, blushing scarlet, walked away. He pettishly
warned Babette, the next time he came
to the Marais, against "compromising" him.
Poor Abbé Chatain! He, too, was a slave to
style.

Once, also, when Lily and Madame Prudence
had ventured beyond the Triumphal Arch at the
top of the Champs Elysecs, and were wandering
though the then ill-tended thickets of the Bois
de Boulogne, they came upon the entire Pension
Marcassin undergoing the dolorous relaxation of
the "promenade." The girls were all rigidly
watched by governesses and sub-governesses,
and bad marks were plenteously distributed for
such offences as not keeping step, or turning the
head over the shoulder to gaze at a quack's platform,
or a Punch's show; while, for a wonder, at
the head of the procession marched the terrible
.Mademoiselle—the Marcassin herself.

She eyed her former pupil and victim narrowly,
and with an evil countenance, as, trembling
in every limb, and feeling herself turn white and
red by turns, Lily passed. The Marcassin had
got well rid of the unprofitable scholar; she
had a hold upon her, in case her friends should
ever come forward; and yet she experienced a
kind of cold rage at the thought that the girl had
slipped through her fingers. It was so easy to
punish the pupil who had no friends. It was so
facile to torment the child who dared not
complain. The Marcassin was vexed that, in a
moment of weakness, she had permitted the abbé
to take away the little English girl. Indeed, she
was angry with the abbé altogether. He did not
come so frequently as he used to come. He spent
most of his leisure time in the Marais. He cared no
more for tric-trac. He sounded the praises of the
Baronne de Kergolay too often, and too warmly.
As for Lily, he spoke of her goodness, her meekness,
her docility, in a manner which, according
to Mademoiselle Marcassm,'was perfectly sickening.
"Ce bonhomme d'abbé radote—he maunders,"
quoth the strong-minded schoolmistress.
"I must seek out another director for the
Pension Marcassin."

However, she knew that she had lost her
prey, and was content to glower at the girl as
she saw her, happy and prosperous, and with the
glow of health upon her cheek. The governesses,
taking the cue from the Marcassin, surveyed Lily
and her companion with supercilious sneers, but
their private comments failed to harmonise with
the public recognition they had bestowed on the
ex-pupil.

"She has been adopted by a duchess," one
whispered.

"A duchess; bah! by a poverty-stricken old
emigrant baroness out of the Vendée, rather.
A pensioner on the ancient civil list, probably.
My father was out in the Bocage. He was a
Bleu. He knew all ces gens-là, and had four
Kergolays shot in one day."

"It is no matter. La petite looks very well.
She is not amiss, la petite."

"She was always an affectionate and obedient
little thing, and it went to one's heart to have to
punish her when she had committed no misdeeds,
merely because such were the orders of superior
authority."

"Well, she is out of the lion's den.—Will you
walk straight, Tavernier l'Ainée, and refrain
from using your fingers as castanets, or shall I
report you, for the fifth time during the existing
promenade, to Mademoiselle Espréménil, for
uItimate reprimand and correction by Madame?"

The misdeeds of Mademoiselle Tavernier the
elder, who was a very muscular young Christian
indeed, and always scandalising the proprietors
of the pensionnat by ill-repressed acrobatic feats,
drove Lily out of the minds of the governesses,
and half a minute after the scholastic cortege had