THE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE AND HUMORIST. CONTENTS FOR OCTOBER. MY FRENCH GOVERNESS. BY DOCTOR DRYASDUST, F.S.A. BLACK, RED, AND GOLD. BY CAPTAIN MEDwin A VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF CRESSY AND Agincourt. THE RICHEST COMMONER IN ENGLAND (CONCLUDED). 199 . 205 215 . 226 228 A FEW MONTHS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. BY LIEUT.-COLONEL E. Mr GUARDIAN ANGEL. BY MRS. ACTON TINDAL IT CANNOT BE SO LONG AGO. BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ. THE NEW ZEALAND QUESTION THE HABITUE'S NOTE-BOOK. BY CHARLES HERVEY, ESQ. . LITERARY NOTICES :-Affection: its Flowers and Fruits. A Tale of the Times.-Beauchamp; or, the Error. By G. P. R. James, Esq.-Presbytery Examined: an Essay, Critical and Historical, on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland since the Reformation. By the Duke of Argyll.-Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys. Edited by Lord Braybrooke. Vol. III. 265 to 268 TO CORRESPONDENTS. Mr. AINSWORTH begs it to be distinctly understood that no Contributions whatever sent him, either for the NEW MONTHLY or AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINES, will be returned. All articles are sent at the risk of the writers, who should invariably keep copies. Orders received by all Booksellers and Newsmen. AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE. A NEW AND REVISED EDITION OF CRICHTON: An Historical Romance, BY W. HARRISON AINSWORTH, ESQ. IS NOW PUBLISHING IN AINSWORTH'S MAGAZINE. ILLUSTRATED BY HABLOT K. BROWNE. CHAPMAN AND HALL, 186, STRAND. NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, MY FRENCH GOVERNESS. BY DOCTOR DRYASDUST, F.S.A. PART II. Ir was not apparently without reason that Mademoiselle Eugènie Loriot informed me she was hungry, nor, in witnessing her performance, had I any difficulty in believing her statement, that she had fasted during the whole of the voyage from Bordeaux to London. Surprise had taken away my appetite, which was rather a fortunate thing, for otherwise there would have been scarcely enough, so well did this interesting "jeune personne" play her knife and fork. Consigned to me by Professor Panurge, she might well have borne the name of Gargantua. It is not a faculty which everybody possesses to eat and talk at the same time, but my guest seemed to be perfect mistress of the art, and her tongue and jaws went rapidly in unison. "C'est un drôle de chose," exclaimed she, making incision in a third mutton chop, "mais je vois bien que tout ce qu'on m'a débité de ce pays n'est pas vrai. Voilà une chose que j'ai découverte,-vous ne mangez pas de la chair crue !" "Raw meat!" I replied in astonishment, "who could have told you such a thing?" "Qui !-mais, tout le monde." "Then you took us all for cannibals ?" I observed. "Pas tout à fait," replied she, coolly; "Je n'avais pas peur que vous me mangeriez,” and she leered wickedly at me with her cross eye as she spoke, the other being steadily fixed on her mutton chop. "There was little fear of that under any circumstances," said I to myself. Notwithstanding her crooked glances she appeared to guess my thoughts. “Dites-moi, monsieur," said Mademoiselle Loriot, abruptly. "Com ment me trouvez-vous ?" As every thing that this lady said or did took me more or less aback, I was at a loss to reply. I could not have said "charming" for the world (though a Frenchman would, as a matter of course); and unless I paid her a compliment, it was better for me to hold my tongue. I took the worst course, halting between two extremes, and answered hesitatingly,"Je,-c'est à dire,-vous,-je trouve que-que-" "Ah," interrupted she, vous voulez dire que je ne suis pas belle. C'est possible ce matin,—je suis tellement journalière, et savez-vous, monOct.-VOL. LXXXIV. NO. CCCXXXIV. L sieur, que vous avez ici un climat affreux,-avec un brouillard éternel et la fumée de charbon de terre comment voulez-vous que le teint se conserve!" I fancied I had by this time recovered sufficient presence of mind to pay her the expected compliment, but somehow or other I always spoil these things before I finish the sentence. "The French ladies," said I, "have very susceptible complexions." Here she smiled,—after her fashion. "But," I continued, "I did not conceive it possible that the smoke and fog could have spoilt yours in the course of a few hours;" here she smiled again,-" I should rather have fancied the result had been the work of time." The thunder-cloud is not so black as her brow became, nor the lightning more scorching than the glance she shot from her sound eye, when I hazarded this unlucky remark. She paused a moment in the operation of chipping an egg, and opened her lips as if with the intention of making a bitter retort, but apparently she changed her purpose and substituted another smile; lexicographers will pardon me if I have misapplied the term. "Quel âge me donnez-vous, monsieur ?" asked the lady gaily. "This woman," thought 1, "was born to annoy me with difficult questions." This time, however, my good genius came to my aid. Tryphæna had previously asked me the same thing. "The fact of your uncomfortable voyage must be my excuse, madmademoiselle, if I make a mistake on the wrong side. I should say you were scarcely f-f-f-thirty," at last I bolted out. Forty-five was as legibly written on her countenance as are the cha racters on the Rosetta stone. “Vous avez raison, monsieur," replied La belle Eugènie, with a dislocating toss of her head, which strong sinews only could have survived: "je n'ai pas trente ans. Au dernier quinze de Novembre,-le jour de mon patron, Saint Eugène, je n'avais que 27 ans. Voyez donc, monsieur, comme on peut se tromper quand il ne fait pas beau temps!" "Ah," said I again to myself, "you've seen so much ugly weather in your time that you're fairly inoculated by it." This opinion, however, I refrained from uttering, and merely bowed and sipped my tea in silence. At last Mademoiselle Loriot finished her breakfast. She threw herself back in her chair, crossed her feet on the rug, and allowing her clasped hands to fall in an easy, negligent way in her lap, she fixed her eft eye steadily on me,-the other wandering round the room in the meantime, as if to take an inventory of the furniture, and renewed her conversation. pas marié!" With that delicate tact which seemed so peculiarly her own she said, "A ce qu'il parait, monsieur, vous n'êtes Blushing like a turkey-cock, though I felt it was she, not I, who ought to have done so, and the image of Tryphæna suddenly hovering (a guardian angel) between me and my questioner, I answered, "Non, mademoiselle-pas encore." "A la bonne heure," she returned, and then added with a fascinating ogle, "mais sans doute vous avez eu des affaires de cœur!" This was a little too much. Here was a person of the opposite sex, far from young, still further from handsome, whose condition of life exacted from her more than from any other, the most guarded and modest expressions, and yet in the course of half an hour's acquaintance, she accosted me with all the familiarity of my oldest male acquaintance,-not that I have a male friend I think who would have said so much. Ovid declares that whether they accept or refuse, women always like to have the question put: "Quæ dant, quæque negant, gaudent tamen esse rogatæ," and Mademoiselle Loriot appeared to be of the same opinion with regard to men. Observing that I paused, she resumed, laughing, "Ah,-c'est un secret donc. Eh bien, laissons celà pour parlons d'autres choses." le moment, "That, Mademoiselle Loriot," said I, in a grave tone, "is precisely what I wish. There are several questions I am desirous of asking you." “Eh bien, mon cher monsieur-comment vous appelez-vous-le diable m'emporte si je puis pronouncer votre nom,-sans ce petit écrit de notre ami Panurge je ne vous aurais jamais trouvé; eh bien, qu'est ce que vous vous désirez savoir ?" “What I wish to know in the first instance,” replied I, "is the precise nature of your arrangements with regard to the continuance of your journey to Scotland.” 66 "Et après ?" asked she, beginning to count on her fingers. "All in good time," I returned; answer me this question first." "Vous me demandez, monsieur, ce que je vais faire à present. Voici ma réponse: Je n'en sais rien." "You know nothing about it?" I exclaimed, in a tone of astonish ment. "Non monsieur, j'ai compté entièrement sur vous." "Ah, true," said I,—" of course, I shall see you to the railway station, and have you booked all the way through, and so forth. You must naturally," I added, with something of hypocrisy in the remark, I must acknowledge,-"you must naturally be desirous of getting to the end of your journey." "Oh ! quant à ça," said the lady, in a very off-hand way,—" Je ne suis pas pressée. Je suis très bien ici. Enfin, je n'ai encore rien vu à Londres!" I groaned inwardly. "She is thinking of those infernal theatres," said I to myself. I was a true prophet. The next observation she made proved it. "Vous avez ici de forts jolis spectacles et de très bons acteurs,―n'est ce pas, monsieur ?" I could not deny it, because I gave implicit belief to the play bills which boldly asserted these facts; had I been in the habit of going to the play myself, she might have heard a different story. "Je ne comprends pas l'Anglais," she continued, " mais, c'est égal, je saurais bien entendre. Quel est le meilleur théâtre ?” While she spoke I had been cogitating on the best mode of putting an extinguisher on any play-going scheme she might have formed, and a lucky thought struck me. |