The courier who preceded her, as guide, enjoyed no such agreeable illusions, but muttered to himself, as he went, certain reflections by no means complimentary, to the whims of fine ladies; while Mademoiselle Celestine inwardly protested that anything, “not positively wrong,” would be dearly purchased by the dangers of such an excursion. “Gregoire! Gregoire! where is he now!” exclaimed Lady Hester, as she lost sight of her guide altogether. “Here, miladi,” grunted out the courier, in evident pain; “I fail to break my neck over de stone bench.” “Where 's the lantern, Gregoire?” “Blowed away, zum Teufel, I believe.” “What 's he saying, Celestine? what does he mean?” But mademoiselle could only answer by a sob of agony over her capote de Paris, flattened to her head like a Highland bonnet. “Have you no light? You must get a light, Gregoire.” “Impossible, miladi; dere 's nobody livin' in dese houses at all.” “Then you must go back to the inn for one; we 'll wait here till you return.” A faint shriek from Mademoiselle Celestine expressed all the terror such a proposition suggested. “Miladi will be lost if she remain here all alone.” “Perdue! sans doute!” exclaimed Celestiue. “I am determined to have my way. Do as I bade you, Gregoire; return for a light, and we'll take such shelter as this door affords in the meanwhile.” It was in no spirit of general benevolence that Gregoire tracked his road back to the “Russie,” since, if truth must be told, he himself had extinguished the light, in the hope of forcing Lady Hester to a retreat. Muttering a choice selection of those pleasant phrases with which his native German abounds, he trudged along, secretly resolving that he would allow his mistress a reasonable interval of time to reflect over her madcap expedition. Meanwhile, Lady Hester and her maid stood shivering and storm-beaten beneath the drip of a narrow eave. The spirit of opposition alone sustained her Ladyship at this conjuncture, for she was wet through, her shoes soaked with rain, and the cold blast that swept along seemed as if it would freeze the very blood in her heart. Celestine could supply but little of comfort or consolation, and kept repeating the words, “Quelle aventure! quelle aventure!” in every variety of lamentation. “He could easily have been back by this,” said Lady Hester, after a long pause, and an anxious attention to every sound that might portend his coming: “I 'm certain it is full half an hour since he left us. What a night!” “Et quelle aventure!” exclaimed Celestine, anew. None knew better than Lady Hester the significant depreciation of the Frenchwoman's phrase, and how differently had she rated all the hazards of the enterprise if any compromise of character were to have followed it. However, it was no time for discussion, and she let it pass. “If he should have missed the way, and not be able to find us!” she said, after another pause.