eau-de-Cologne and milk of almonds, and who have
found, when I have done dressing, the bouquet
left for me at. the door of my loge by the duke
or the ambassador—ay, the bouquet with a
diamond ring for a holder. 'Cré nom! c'est à
crever de rage!"

Then she would drink a little brandy, and a
little more, and more, and console herself, and
begin to sing.

When she was fully accoutred in all her paint,
and all her feathers, and spangles, and tawdry,
twopenny splendours, she would, after surveying
herself in a broken piece of looking-glass, come
forward to Lily and pose and grimace before
her with the great wooden club and foil paper-
covered hatchet that went to make up her
paraphernalia.

"Am I handsome, à cette heure? Am I
graceful? Am I fascinating? Am I La Bella
Zigazesi, who has turned so many hearts?" she
would cry, ironically.

Lily did not know what answer to return.

"You say nothing. You despise your m——
your protectress. Ah! you disdain me, do you,
Mademoiselle la Comtesse—Baronne—Princesse
de Kergolay—Mademoiselle la Marquise de
Carabas—Quatre sous? We will soon take
your pride out of you. Quick, trollop. Donne-
moi la goutte. Give me some brandy, do you
hear?"

Lily poured out for her, into a glass that was
without a foot, some of the poison the woman
liked so well.

"Ah! that is good," she would say, drawing
a long breath. "Ça tue à la longue, mais ça
donne du courage—du zug-zug." And then she
would throw back her long hair, now coarse and
ropy from inculture, and flecked with grey. "A
short life and a merry one. Vive la joie et le
zug-zug! Dire que j'ai été une miladi—la femme
d'un gentilhomme. C'était de la crapule, ce
Blunt. Un franc coquin que j'ai eu pour mari.
Yes, he was a scoundrel, but he was a gentleman,
and I was his wife. I used to ride in a carriage
and go to the opera with ostrich feathers in my
head. I used to wear diamonds. Look at my
hands now, you wolf cub."

Rude work had spread the muscles, swollen
the knuckles, roughened the skin, and covered
the backs with gnarled knots, like unto the roots
of trees. They had once been handsome hands;
but they were discoloured now, and chapped
and barked by exposure. In bitter mockery
of her former state, she still had her fingers
covered with rings; but they were paltry
baubles, not worth ten sous apiece—mere bits
of glass backed with tinsel and set in hoops of
brass, which left green stains upon her flesh.

She would come home at night, tired, dusty,
perspiring, the ruddle on her face muddled into
one cloudy morass, and more than half intoxicated.
The Italian waxwork man would come
with her, and he who wore the suit of armour.
There was another Italian too, a hideous hunch-
backed fellow with a heavy fringe of black
whisker beneath his chin, and a huge fur cap
and velveteen jacket, who dealt in white mice,
marmots, hurdy-gurdies, and Savoyard boys.
He went by the name of "L'organo di Barbaria,"
and no other. He brought one of his slaves
with him the second day, a wobegone little
object from Chambery, aged about eleven, very
wan-faced and ragged, who had a consumptive
cough, and crouched down in a corner, cuddling
a diminutive monkey, who was, as to his upper
parts, attired after the fashion of a marquis of
the ancient régime, and, as to his lower, after
that of the Sultana Scheherazade, as seen in
illustrations of the Arabian Nights. And of
this monkey the wobegone little boy from
Chambery seemed passionately fond.

While the men and the Wild Woman were
wrangling over their brandy and tobacco and
dominoes, Lily ventured to approach the little
monkey boy, and slip into his hand a piece of
bread, the remnant of her coarse repast.

The Wild Woman saw the action. " Young
robber," she cried out. "Attends, je vais te
donner une triplée. Ah! I have the double
six." But beyond this she took no notice of
Lily's patronage of the Savoyard.

The girl was very glad. She made the boy
eat, and was delighted that he first of all took
care of the monkey, whom he addressed as
Cupidon, and whose white teeth were soon
chattering over a crisp bit of crust. Lily, growing
bolder, stroked the long lean paw of the
ape, and even mustered up enough courage to
scratch his bullet head. He resented this liberty
somewhat, and might have bitten the girl, but
for a warning tug at his chain on the part of his
master. Then he retired into private life, and
the bosom of the Savoyard's friendly but
uncleanly shirt, there to dwell in pensive dreams,
perhaps, of his primitive forests, and the happy
days when he hung on to the limbs of trees by
his prehensile tail, watching his great uncle as
he hurled cocoa-nuts at the head of the intrusive
traveller. Still absorbed as he was in the
pleasures of warmth and rest from labour, Lily
could see his little bright eyes twinklingly watching
her from under the waistcoat of the Alpine
boy.

"Where do you dance?" asked the Savoyard.

"Dance?" quoth Lily, opening her eyes.

"Haven't I seen you with a tambourine and
red shoes, doing the Infiorata?"

Lily told him, gently, that it must be some
other girl.

"How much did your padrona give for you?
My padrone paid six hundred francs for Vittore
Emmanuele" (the names of all Savoyards are
either Victor Emmanuel, Charles Albert, or
Charles John). "My father bought two cows
and six goats with my price, and paid off Grippe
Minaud the bloodsucker, who had lent him
money to raise his crop. Does your padrona
beat you? My master beats us with a chain.
Luigi, the boy from Genoa, who died, tried to
poison 'L'organo' in his petit verre. When
they washed him for burial his body was all
blue."

They were a curious trio, the girl, the Savoyard,
and the ape.