"My accent, be it ever so slight," she began, "will have told you before this that, if I speak your language as well as you do, I cannot claim your beloved Paris as my birth-place. Indeed, I am an Englishwoman, but I was educated by a French governess. I was married when I was twenty, and since then I have lived uninterruptedly in France. My father, after having passed half his life in exploring the remote parts of Africa, and after having recorded, in connection with them, much valuable information and deep research, one day, when no other course was open to him, made up his mind to betake himself to a quiet life in the bosom of his family. But he could never divest himself of his great interest in those questions which he had, for so long a time, made his study, and up to the day of his death he was one of the most valuable and valued members of the Royal Geographical Society of London. In our drawing-room at home—we lived in London—I have seen, from time to time, most of the celebrated travellers of our age. I remember distinctly having been nursed, when I was quite a little girl, by Overweg and Speke; and I have an equally vivid recollection of having been kissed by Richardson, on his departure for the Soudan, as well as of the tears I shed when we heard the report of his death, which we refused to credit until it received its sad confirmation from the lips of Barth. I knew Edward Vögel, who was treacherously murdered in the Waday territory, Schweinfurth, Baker, Brun-Rollet, and as many more, whose names I cannot recall at this moment, but whom I shall ever hold in remembrance. My father, cosmopolitan rather than English, held our insular prejudices in but slight esteem, and so it happened that, after dinner, instead of receiving a hint to retire, I was permitted to remain in the society of his friends. All the great scientific questions which have stirred the world during the last ten years, have been discussed in my presence by the men best qualified to elucidate them.