.

A NIGHT ALARM.
I was returning that same afternoon from a long walk that I had taken--for my mood was of that unenviable sort that impels a man to be moving--when I found a travelling-chaise drawn up in the quadrangle as if ready for a journey.

As I mounted the steps of the chateau I came face to face with mademoiselle, descending.

I drew aside that she might pass; and this she did with her chin in the air, and her petticoat drawn to her that it might not touch me.
I would have spoken to her, but her eyes looked straight before her with a glance that was too forbidding; besides which there was the gaze of a half-dozen grooms upon us.

So, bowing before her--the plume of my doffed hat sweeping the ground--I let her go.