In the afternoon, there was a great bustle in the hotel, and half-a-dozen voices were heard doing the work of fifty. I went out into the passage, and caught the first fragments of an explanation that soon became complete. M. Alphonse, courier to M. de Mourairef, had arrived, and was indignantly maintaining that Sophie and Penelope, the two waiting-maids of the princess, had arrived at the Tete Noire, to take a suite of rooms for their mistress; whilst the landlord and his coadjutors, slow to comprehend, averred that the great lady had herself been there, and departed. The truth at length came out--that these two smart Parisian lasses, having a fortnight before them, had determined to give up their places, and play the mascarade which I have described. When M. and Madame de Mourairef, two respectable, middle-aged people, arrived, they were dismally made acquainted with the sacrilege that had been committed; but as no debts had been contracted in their name, and their letters came in a parcel by the post from Orleans, they laughed heartily at the joke, and enjoyed the idea that Sophie had been taken in. The following winter, I went into a cafe newly established in the Rue Poissoniere, and was agreeably surprised to see Sophie, the pseudo-princess, sitting behind the counter in magnificent toilette, receiving the bows and the money of the customers as they passed before her, whilst M. Jerome--exactly in appearance as before, except that prosperity had begun to round him--was leaning against a pillar in rather a melodramatic attitude, a white napkin gracefully depending from his hand. They started on seeing me, and were a little confused, but soon laughed over their adventure; called Penelope to take her turn at the counter--the little serf whispered to me as she passed, that I was 'a traitor, a barbarian,' and insisted on treating me to my coffee and my _petit verre_, free, gratis, for nothing. MEMOIRS OF LORD JEFFREY.