“And the paper between the leaves?—you were charged also with that note, good François?” The valet paused, shrugged his shoulders, and laid one of his long yellow fingers on the plane of an enormous aquiline nose, while he seemed to muse. Then shaking his head perpendicularly, he preceded the captain, as before, muttering, as usual, half in French and half in English,— “For le papier, I know, rien du tout; c’est bien possible, parceque, voyez vous, Monsieur le Capitaine, Mam’selle Alide did say, prenez-y garde; but I no see him, depuis. Je suppose ’twas beaux compliments écrits on de vers of M. Pierre Corneille. Quel génie que celui de cet homme là!—n’est ce pas, Monsieur?” “It is of no consequence, good François,” said Ludlow, slipping a guinea into the hands of the valet. “If you should ever discover what became of that paper, however, you will oblige me by letting me know. Good night; mes devoirs à la Belle!” “Bon soir, Monsieur le Capitaine; c’est un brave Monsieur que celui-la, et de très bonne famille! Il n’a pas de si grandes terres, que Monsieur le Patteroon, pourtant, on dit, qu’il doit avoir de jolies maisons et assez de rentes publiques! J’aime à servir un si généreux et loyal maître, mais, malheureusement, il est marin! M. de Barbérie n’avait pas trop d’amitié pour les gens de cette profession là.” CHAPTER VIII. “—Well, Jessica, go in; Perhaps, I will return immediately; Do as I bid you, Shut doors after you: Fast bind, fast find; A proverb never stale, in thrifty mind.” Merchant of Venice. The decision, with which la demoiselle Barbérie had dismissed her suitor, was owing to some consciousness that she had need of opportunity to reflect on the singular nature of the events which had just happened, no less than to a sense of the impropriety of his visiting her at that hour, and in a manner so equivocal. But, like others who act from feverish impulses, when alone the maiden repented of her precipitation; and she remembered fifty questions which might aid in clearing the affair of its mystery, that she would now gladly put. It was too late, however, for she had heard Ludlow take his leave, and had listened, in breathless silence, to his footstep, as he passed the shrubbery of her little lawn. François reappeared at the door, to repeat his wishes for her rest and happiness, and then she believed she was finally alone for the night, since the ladies of that age and country, were little apt to require the assistance of their attendants, in assuming, or in divesting themselves of, their ordinary attire.