"Was not my question well thought of?" asked I of my other self in triumph. "I think you are becoming a monomaniac," was his complimentary reply. The day passed uneventfully, although I still had a suspicion that I was watched, but I had no means of making it a certainty. When I returned home my first look was toward the portrait. It was still safe. At that moment there was a knock at the door. I opened it, and found there my washerwoman, or I should say my washerwoman's substitute, one whom I had never before seen. She was a bright, talkative little thing, a pearl of soapsuds, and said glibly that my usual attendant was ill, and she had come instead. I told her I was glad she had. While putting down her basket her brown eyes took in the whole of my room, and she remarked with a shiver, "What a sad home you live in!--gloomy, ugly little chamber." "Does your young man have a better one, my dear?" "You are not my confessor," she answered saucily. "I wish I were." "Let me be yours." "No objections." "Who is the _joli garçon_ you condemn to share with you this gloomy apartment?" She pointed to the portrait. "A dear friend of mine." "He looks as if he drank absinthe, and had broken his head on the pavement; nevertheless, I like him. Bring him to see me." "Willingly: when shall we call?" "As soon as possible: meanwhile I will carry this with me." She lightly jumped on a chair, took my portrait and retreated with it to the door, saying, "Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, No. 42, to-morrow." "Not so fast, please," said I, taking the canvas from her hand. "Stingy fellow! you might let me have it. He would be so much surprised when you brought him _chez moi_ to see it hanging on the wall. Give it to me;" and she held out her hand with a charming gesture. "No, no, my dear: you may come and see it here whenever you like, but here it must remain." I turned and hung it on its accustomed nail: when I looked again she was gone. Not even the sound of her foot on the stairs nor a moving shadow on the steps when I looked over the balustrade. "Either the world is going mad, or I am," I exclaimed. "You need not be in doubt which." "Any one would think it odd. Could she be the forlorn widow in search of the portrait of the husband of her youth?" "No." "Does old Sticks look as if he could play a practical joke?" "No." "Or my concierge?" "No." "Or my washerwoman?" "No." "And this radiant little bubble of soapsuds who was just here, what do you think of her?" But my other self, having nothing more to say, was sensible enough to keep silent, and we slept.