I did not lose my calmness. After firmly emptying the pitcher, basin, and slop-jar on the burning bed, I proceeded cautiously to the garden, and, returning with the garden-engine, I directed a small stream at Mr. Rawjester. At my entrance the gigantic negress fled. Mr. Rawjester yawned and woke. I explained to him, as he rose dripping from the bed, the reason of my presence. He did not seem to be excited, alarmed, or discomposed. He gazed at me curiously. "So you risked your life to save mine, eh? you canary-colored teacher of infants." I blushed modestly, and drew my shawl tightly over my yellow flannel nightgown. "You love me, Mary Jane,--don't deny it! This trembling shows it!" He drew me closely toward him, and said, with his deep voice tenderly modulated:-- "How's her pooty tootens,--did she get her 'ittle tootens wet,--bess her?" I understood his allusion to my feet. I glanced down and saw that in my hurry I had put on a pair of his old india-rubbers. My feet were not small or pretty, and the addition did not add to their beauty. "Let me go, sir," I remarked quietly. "This is entirely improper; it sets a bad example for your child." And I firmly but gently extricated myself from his grasp. I approached the door. He seemed for a moment buried in deep thought. "You say this was a negress?" "Yes, sir." "Humph, No. 1, I suppose?" "Who is Number One, sir?" "My FIRST," he remarked, with a significant and sarcastic smile. Then, relapsing into his old manner, he threw his boots at my head, and bade me begone. I withdrew calmly. CHAPTER V. My pupil was a bright little girl, who spoke French with a perfect accent. Her mother had been a French ballet-dancer, which probably accounted for it. Although she was only six years old, it was easy to perceive that she had been several times in love. She once said to me:-- "Miss Mix, did you ever have the grande passion? Did you ever feel a fluttering here?" and she placed her hand upon her small chest, and sighed quaintly, "a kind of distaste for bonbons and caromels, when the world seemed as tasteless and hollow as a broken cordial drop." "Then you have felt it, Nina?" I said quietly. "O dear, yes. There was Buttons,--that was our page, you know,--I loved him dearly, but papa sent him away. Then there was Dick, the groom, but he laughed at me, and I suffered misery!" and she struck a tragic French attitude. "There is to be company here to-morrow," she added, rattling on with childish naivete, "and papa's sweetheart--Blanche Marabout--is to be here. You know they say she is to be my mamma." What thrill was this shot through me? But I rose calmly, and, administering a slight correction to the child, left the apartment. Blunderbore House, for the next week, was the scene of gayety and merriment. That portion of the mansion closed with a grating was walled up, and the midnight shrieks no longer troubled me.