they were disproved at a glance. At last, Nancy, over the wash-tub at the Park, gave out that Laurette was coquettish; and that she would have Master Adam look about him; that honest English husbands who married French wives, and young wives, and pretty wives into the bargain, had need to look about them; that she, for her part, was very sorry for her worthy neighbour,—but that folks who lived near, saw more than other folks thought for;—and then Nanny sighed and held her tongue. Nanny’s holding her tongue produced a wonderful sensation in the Park laundry; such an event had never occurred there before; it was thought that the cause of her speechlessness must be something most portentous and strange, and questions were rained upon her from all quarters.

For an incredible space of time (at least two minutes) Nanny maintained a resolute silence, shook her head, and said nothing. At last, in pure confidence, she disclosed to five women, the laundrymaid, the dairymaid, two housemaids, and another charwoman, the important fact, that it was not for nothing that Gilbert carried a basket every day from Mrs. Talbot to Laurette; that her husband, poor man, had not found it out yet, but that, doubtless, his eyes would be opened some day or other; that she did not blame Gilbert so much, poor fellow, the chief advances being made by the foreign madam, who had said to her, in her jargon, that she should be dead if the basket did not come every day, meaning, no doubt, if he did not bring the basket; and that all the world would see what would come of it. Then, recommending secrecy, which all parties promised, Nanny put on her shawl, and her pattens, and trudged home; and before night the whole house knew of it, and before the next day, the whole parish—the only exception being, perhaps, Laurette herself, and Colonel and Mrs. Talbot, who were, as great people generally are, happily ignorant of the nonsense talked in their own kitchen.

Two persons, at all events, heard the story, with as many circumstantial additions as the tale of the three black crows,—and those two were Adam Stokes, whom it made as jealous as Othello, upon somewhat the same course of reasoning, and Gilbert himself, who, something of a rural coxcomb, although no practised seducer, began at last to believe that what everybody said must be partly true, that though he himself were perfectly guiltless of love, the fair lady might have had the misfortune to be smitten with his personal good gifts (for Gilbert was a well-looking, ruddy swain, of some nineteen or twenty, the very age when young lads confide in the power of their own attractions), and to make up his mind to fall in love with her out of gratitude.

Accordingly, he began to court Laurette at every opportunity; and Laurette, who, in spite of her French education, had no notion that an Englishman’s wife could be courted by anybody but her husband, and whose comprehension of the language was still too vague to enable her to understand him thoroughly, continued to treat him with her usual friendly kindness, the less inclined to make any observation on his conduct, since she was altogether engrossed by the moodiness of her husband, who had suddenly changed from the most loving to the most surly of mortals. Laurette tried to soothe and pacify him, but the more she strove against his ill-humour, the worse it grew, and the poor young Frenchwoman at last took to singing melancholy songs, and sighing, and drooping, and hanging her head like a bereaved turtle-dove. It was in this state that I saw her.

Matters were now advancing towards a crisis. Gilbert saw Laurette’s dejection, and, imputing it to a hopeless passion for himself, ventured to send her a billet-doux, written by Colonel Talbot’s valet (for although he had learned to write at a national school, he had already contrived to forget his unpractised lesson), which, in terms fine enough for a valet himself, requested her to honour him with a private interview at the stile, by the towing-path, at nine in the evening, when Adam would be away.

This English, which was too fine to be good—that is to say, to be idiomatic, proved more intelligible to Laurette than his previous declarations, although aided by all the eloquence of eyes. She, however, resolved to take further advice on the occasion, and showed the epistle to Ned.

“What is this writing here?” said Laurette. “What will it say?”

“It is a love-letter, Mrs. Stokes,” answered Ned.