who had been partly educated in an Irish convent, and was esteemed a perfect adept in the English language.  A bluff little personage this maitresse was—­Labasse-courienne from top to toe:  and how she did slaughter the speech of Albion!  However, I told her a plain tale, which she translated.  I told her how I had left my own country, intent on extending my knowledge and gaining my bread; how I was ready to turn my hand to any useful thing, provided it was not wrong or degrading:  how I would be a child’s nurse or a lady’s-maid, and would not refuse even housework adapted to my strength.  Madame heard this; and questioning her countenance, I almost thought the tale won her ear.

“Il n’y a que les Anglaises pour ces sortes d’entreprises,” said she:  “sont-elles done intrepides, ces femmes-la!”

She asked my name, my age; she sat and looked at me—­not pityingly, not with interest:  never a gleam of sympathy or a shade of compassion crossed her countenance during the interview.  I felt she was not one to be led an inch by her feelings:  grave and considerate, she gazed, consulting her judgment and studying my narrative....

In the dead of night I suddenly awoke.  All was hushed, but a white figure stood in the room—­Madame in her night-dress.  Moving without perceptible sound, she visited the three children in the three beds; she approached me; I feigned sleep, and she studied me long.  A small pantomime ensued, curious enough.  I dare say she sat a quarter of an hour on the edge of my bed, gazing at my face.  She then drew nearer, bent close over me; slightly raised my cap, and turned back the border so as to expose my hair; she looked at my hand lying on the bed-clothes.  This done, she turned to the chair where my clothes lay; it was at the foot of the bed.  Hearing her touch and lift them, I opened my eyes with precaution, for I own I felt curious to see how far her taste for research would lead her.  It led her a good way:  every article did she inspect.  I divined her motive for this proceeding; viz., the wish to form from the garments a judgment respecting the wearer, her station, means, neatness, etc.  The end was not bad, but the means were hardly fair or justifiable.  In my dress was a pocket; she fairly turned it inside out; she counted the money in my purse; she opened a little memorandum-book, coolly perused its contents, and took from between the leaves a small plaited lock of Miss Marchmont’s gray hair.  To a bunch of three keys, being those of my trunk, desk, and work-box, she accorded special attention:  with these, indeed, she withdrew a moment to her own room.  I softly rose in my bed and followed her with my eye:  these keys, reader, were not brought back till they had left on the toilet of the adjoining room the impress of their wards in wax.  All being thus done decently and in order, my property was returned to its place, my clothes were carefully refolded.  Of what nature were the conclusions deduced from this scrutiny?  Were they favorable or otherwise?  Vain question.  Madame’s face of stone (for of stone in its present night-aspect it looked:  it had been human, and as I said before, motherly, in the salon) betrayed no response.