her into the dressing-room towards the unseen
object of her rage.

Sir William heard a plaintive little sob from
the dressing-room.

The infuriated woman suddenly turned her
tongue over, and in a voluble scream proceeded
to abuse the invisible offender in French.

"Oui, pleure. Ça fera du bien, n'est-ce pas?
Ça raccommodera un chapeau de trente-cinq
francs que v'là abîmé. Ah! tu me paieras ce
chapeau-là, petite diablesse! Pleure donc.
Toi et un crocodile c'est à pleurnicher à qui
mieux mieux. Petite satanée, tu me sers encore
un plat de ton métier. Ne me donne pas la
réplique, ou je te flanque une paire de giffles.
Tu l'as fait exprès. Exprès. M'entends-tu? Et
ces palefreniers—qui sont bien les plus infâmes
drôles du monde—sont là qui ricanent.
Attends, attends! je vais te tremper une soupe,
fainéante! Ma parole d'honneur, j'ai envie de
te cingler les épaules avec ma cravache."

She made so threatening a move inwards, she
made so ominous a gesture with the hand that
held the horsewhip, that Sir William, who,
although he could ill keep pace with, had
understood the purport of her jargon well
enough, became really alarmed lest positive
outrage should follow her menace. He stepped
forward, and, at all hazards determined to
arrest her in her intent, laid his hand on her
arm, and stammered out, "Madame! madame!
je vous en prie!"

The woman turned round upon him with
ferocious rapidity. In forcing her hat off, her
hair had come down. Those tresses were not
from the barber's at so much an ounce. They
were her own, and were superb. But, with her
locks streaming over her shoulders, and her
bloodshot eyes, and the heat-drops pouring
down her face, which Sir William could see
now was coarse and furrowed, she looked like a
fury.

"Cent mille tonnerres!" she cried out, "que
me vent ce voyou-là?"

The situation was critical—Madame Ernestine
was a lady evidently accustomed to the
adoption of extreme measures. What business
had Sir William there, then? What right had
he to interfere with a lady with whom he was
unacquainted, and who was merely scolding—
her servant, perhaps? A horsewhip might not
have been an unusual argument in use behind
the scenes of a circus. Now that he had gone
so far, what was to be his next move?

Luckily, Madame Ernestine evinced no
immediate intent of seizing him by the throat, or
of tearing his eyes out. As even greater luck
would have it, M'Variety, the manager, came
bustling up at this moment.

"What's the matter—what's the matter?" he
inquired of an assistant riding-master.

"It's that thundering Frenchwoman again,"
replied the gentleman with the gold braid
down the seams of his pantaloons, and the
moustache whose lustrous blackness was due
to the soot from the smoke of a candle, caught
on the lid of a pomatum-pot, rubbed up with
the unguent and applied with the finger, hot.

"'Pon my word, governor, there'll be murder
here some night—she'll knife somebody, and get
hanged at Horsemonger-lane. The way she
bullies that poor little girl who waits upon
her's awful. This is the third time to-night
I've heard her threaten to skin her alive."

"Oh, nonsense," rejoined Mr. M'Variety, who
remembered how well the madame drew, and
wished to keep things as pleasant as possible.
"It's only her temper." And he pushed his
way by towards the scene of action.

"Temper be smothered," grumbled the assistant
riding-master, retiring into a corner, and
giving his whip a vengeful crack. "She's a
regular devil that woman, and four nights out
of six she's as lushy as a boiled owl. If she
belonged to me I wouldn't quilt her! I wouldn't
make the figure of eight on her shoulders with
whipcord. Oh dear no! not at all."

"Mr. M'Variety," said the baronet, as the
manager came bustling up, "you will infinitely
oblige me by introducing me to the talented
equestrian, Madame Ernestine, whose charming
performance I have just witnessed, and whose
acquaintance I am respectfully anxious to make."

Madame Ernestine appeared to be susceptible
of conciliation. She curtseyed with her old
haughty grace as the delighted manager
ceremoniously presented Sir William Long, Baronet,
to her; she even bestowed a smile upon him;
but she took care to close the door of her
dressing-room behind her, and to set her back against
it, and, meanwhile, from the countenance of Sir
William Long, Baronet, she never moved her
eyes.

The manager, who was always in a hurry,
bustled away again, and left them together.

"Ah! it is you," the woman said. "I have
written to you half a dozen times for money,
and you have never answered me. That was
long ago, it is true."

Sir William explained that he had been
abroad, sometimes for years at a time. Where
had she written to?

"It does not matter. You did not send the
money. You are all alike, you men. What do
you want now?"

"Well, we are old friends, countess,
and——"

"Bah! A d'autres vos sornettes. What do
you want with me now that I am old, and
wrinkled, and fond of brandy, and cannot show
my legs. You don't want me to dine at Greenwich
with you now. I am ugly and coarse, and
éreintée."

"Come, come, countess," pursued Sir
William, "don't be cross. Whitebait isn't in, or
we should be delighted to see you at
Greenwich, I'm sure. You must come and sup with
us to-night when you have changed your dress.
Carlton is here. You remember Carlton?"

"I remember everybody. How old and worn
you look. What have you been doing to
yourself? You must have to pay dearly for your
bonnes fortunes now. Nobody would fall in
love with you pour vos beaux yeux."