De ribber Jordan I can see, Toujour jamais, toujour jamais; Mein liebe frau, ach, she lofes me, Fair Jeannie het awa! Then I wen’ daown the caows to milk, Toujour jamais, toujour jamais; Me lika banan’ as softa as silk, Helas, cordon, by gar! XXVII ’MIDST ARMED FOES BY THE AUTHOR OF “DUNN TO DEATH; OR, THE WEATHER PROPHET’S FATE,” “SARAH THE SALES-WOM-LADY; OR, FROM COUNTER TO COUNTESS,” ETC. Raoul Chevreuilly stood within a rude hut in the dark recesses of the forest of Fontainebleau. By his side stood his lady-love, the beautiful Perichole Perihelion. Without, the night was black and the wind roared as it is wont to do in stories of this type. “Dost fear aught, my precious?” asked Raoul, gazing at the French face of the lovely Parisian. “Why should I fear when I am protected by my Raoul--how do you pronounce Raoul, anyway?” replied she. “I long ago gave up trying. But, Perichole, while I would not have you fear, yet it is no light task that I have undertaken--your defense against as fierce a pack of roistering thieves as ever beset the forest and who now surround this hut. Let but the wind die down so that they may be heard, and they will hurl execrations at me and beat down the door. Réné Charpentier seeks my life because I have promised to be yours, or rather because you have promised to be mine. But he shall kill me only at the expense of my life. Yea, though he had twice a hundred myrmidons at his back and beck.” For answer the entrancing girl took a mother-of-pearl jews’ harp off the wall and played “Mlle. Rosie O’Grady,” “There’ll be a chaud temps in the vieux ville ce soir,” and other simple French ditties. [Illustration] Instead of admiring her pluck, Raoul was moved to fury, and he cried in French,--this whole business is supposed to be in French, except the descriptions,--“Is it impossible to move you to a realization of my bravery? Know, then, that, save for ourselves, there is not a human being within three miles of this hut. I had thought that you would be moved to added love by such an exhibition of bravery on my part as your defense against a hundred bravos; but, _viol di gamba!_ you have no imagination.” “And Réné Charpentier?” “There is no such fellow. He is but a pigment--I mean figment of my brain.” Flinging a pair of arms around his French neck, the adorable Perichole kissed Raoul again and once more. Then she said, “My adored one, that you were brave I suspected--are you not the hero of a French novel? But I never knew that you were such a lovely liar. Raoul, my own forevermore!” And her beautiful face beamed with a love-light whose wick had been newly trimmed. XXVIII AT THE SIGN OF THE CYGNET A COSMOPOLITAN ROMANCE I It was late spring in New England. Buttercups bespangled the grass and nodded and smiled at the apple-blossoms in the trees. And the apple-blossoms nodded in return, and in a few days fluttered down to the buttercups.