has two hours to get away—when Silvio Pellico
might find the bars of his cell window under
the piombi sawn through, and a rope-ladder
nailed to the sill; and yet when the captives
would but yawn, and think it scarcely worth
their while to make their escape. There is
somewhat of the infinite mercy of Heaven in
thus blunting our senses during suffering. The
victim sleeps at the stake. I have heard of a
convict who committed suicide because the end
of his slavery was rapidly approaching; but I
think you might trust a hundred convicts with
razors to shave themselves every day for a year
without three of them cutting their throats.

Lily was not in chains, and her window was
not barred; but she was a captive, nevertheless.
She had resigned herself to it, and
waited, submissively enough, for what was to
come next.

The hostess of the tavern where they lived at
Dijon brought her her meals after this.
Perhaps she suspected the good nature of her
servant girl. The Wild Woman had told her
that Lily was a refractory apprentice, obstinately
intent on not learning to dance on the tightrope,
and inveterately addicted to running
away. The hostess, who had had much to do
with mountebanks in her time (her husband had
been a paillasse, and her eldest son was a
ventriloquist, while her youngest daughter
walked on stilts), fully believed this story, and
looked upon Lily as a very atrocious young
criminal indeed.

"If you were apprenticed to me," she would
say, "my faith, I would arrange you. You
should learn to dance as the bears do. Va
petite drôlesse, je te ferais sauter à la musique
d'un bon martinet. I'd lay a strap about you,
that's all."

Lily did not think it worth while to bandy
words with this woman, who was stupid and
violent, and given to imbibing too much cassis.

"Sulky young baboon," the hostess would
continue, shaking her forefinger at her. "At
thy age, too. Almost a woman. And not so
very bad-looking, either," she added, in an
under tone, to herself. "Dost thou know what
will come to thee for running away? The
police will get hold of thee, and thou wilt be
sent to prison, absolument comme une coureuse.
Is it so very difficult, then, to dance on the
cord?  Bah! when I was half thy age, my
father made me swallow a Turkish scimitar,
and the sabre of a cuirassier; and before I was
twelve, I was practising the back summersault
on a spring board into a pond of water, to
prevent breaking my bones when I fell."

A fortnight elapsed before the Wild Woman
came back; but she returned radiant. They
had been to Lyons: to the fair of the Croix
Rouge. Ventimillioni had run over to Geneva,
where, in those days, and may be, for aught I
know, to this day, there is a public gaming-table.
Luck was in his favour, and the Italian had
won heavily: two hundred Napoleons. He had
come back to Lyons, dressed up the Wild
Woman in satin and velvet, bought her a
bonnet with a bird of paradise plume in it,
covered her wrist and neck with cheap jewellery,
and taken her over to Geneva. Luck had gone
against him then; and with a very few
Napoleons remaining from his winnings, he was
prepared moodily to return to the place whence he
came, and take to the waxwork business again.
But the Wild Woman—Madame la Comtesse,
in future, if you please—had been experiencing
the smiles of fortune, while on the unhappy
Ventimillioni she had so suddenly scowled.
Madame had not ventured anything beyond a
few five-franc pieces on the red or the black;
but she had met an old, a very old acquaintance
at Geneva. Whence it arose that she returned
to Dijon radiant.

"Up, paresseuse!" she cried to Lily. "Up,
and get your rags together. We are going back
to England and to life."

The girl, who passed most of her time now
crouching listlessly in a corner, interpreted this
command as a literal one, and stood up in
obedience to it. Madame seemed to recollect
that the rags she had spoken of were already
gotten together, and that Lily had no others.

"Did ever one see such a tatterdemalion?"
she grumbled. "I must go to a revendeuse à
la toilette, and get her some clothes to travel
in."

Lily was locked up, for the last time; but
within an hour madame came back with a fat old
woman who had a lisp and the asthma, and
whose splay, slowly crawling feet, in their roomy
black list slippers, looked like a pair of turtle in
mourning for their brethren who had been made
by cruel epicures into soup. The fat old woman
carried a big bundle beneath each arm, and Lily
was speedily equipped in some faded but decent
second-hand garments. The countess sat by,
inspecting the proceedings, and tapping the
floor impatiently with her parasol. It was the
second time, Lily remembered, that she had so
been fitted out under inspection. The last time
it was by Cutwig and Co.

Ten days afterwards they were in London.
The Italian stayed behind. He seemed to bear
separation from the Wild Woman—the countess,
I mean—with great equanimity. She had for
him, and had had always, the haughty and
insolent indifference we feel for a person whose
grade is beneath ours, but who is useful to us.
Even in her lowest state she had treated the
waxwork man du haut en bas.

"When I pay you a visit in London, my
empress, the Italian remarked, showing his
white teeth, "you will have some macaroni for
your Angelo, your Angelino, your Angeliotto—
is it not so?"

"That depends," she answered, tossing her
head. "Can you let me have any more money?"

"Not a bajocco! you would devour as many
millions as there are in my name. I have but
four Louis d'or left, and I must have crowded
houses at the show for a fortnight, or I shall
starve."

"That is your affair."

"Yes, my duchess, that is my affair"—and the