“A thorough German she must be,” thought I, “with her sympathies and her supper—­her reminiscences and her Rhine wine hunting in couples through her brain.”

Summoning courage from the fact of our long absence from each other, I followed the manager through a wilderness of pavilions, forests, clouds and cataracts, and at length arrived at a little door, at which he knocked gently.

“Come in,” said a soft voice inside.  We opened, and beheld a very beautiful young woman, in Tyrolese costume.  She was to perform in the afterpiece—­her low boddice and short scarlet petticoat displaying the most perfect symmetry of form and roundness of proportion.  She was dressing her hair before a low glass as we came in, and scarcely turned at our approach; but in an instant, as if some sudden thought had struck her, she sprung fully round, and looking at me fixedly for above a minute—­a very trying one for me—­she glanced at her husband, whose countenance plainly indicated that she was right, and calling out, “C’est lui—­c’est bien lui,” threw herself into my arms, and sobbed convulsively.

“If this were to be the only fruits of my impersonation,” thought I, “it is not so bad—­but I am greatly afraid these good people will find out a wife and seven babies for me before morning.”

Whether the manager thought that enough had been done for stage effect, I know not; but he gently disengaged the lovely Amelie, and deposited her upon a sofa, to a place upon which she speedily motioned me by a look from a pair of very seducing blue eyes.

“Francois, mon cher, you must put off La Chaumiere.  I can’t play to-night.”

“Put it off!  But only think of the audience, ma mie—­they will pull down the house.”

“C’est possible,” said she, carelessly.  “If that give them any pleasure, I suppose they must be indulged; but I, too, must have a little of my own way.  I shall not play.”

The tone this was said in—­the look—­the easy gesture of command—­no less than the afflicted helplessness of the luckless husband, showed me that Amelie, however docile as a sweetheart, had certainly her own way as wife.

While Le cher Francois then retired, to make his proposition to the audience, of substituting something for the Chaumiere—­the “sudden illness of Madame Baptiste having prevented her appearance,”—­we began to renew our old acquaintance, by a thousand inquiries from that long-past time, when we were sweethearts and lovers.

“You remember me then so well?” said I.

“As of yesterday.  You are much taller, and your eyes darker; but still—­there is something.  You know, however, I have been expecting to see you these two days; and tell me frankly how do you find me looking?”

“More beautiful, a thousand times more beautiful than ever—­all save in one thing, Amelie.”

“And that is—­”

“You are married.”

“How you jest.  But let us look back.  Do you ever think on any of our old compacts?” Here she pulled a leaf from a rose bud in her bouquet, and kissed it.  “I wager you have forgotten that.”