'_My_ mamma never says "I don't know" or "Don't ask questions."'

In 1834 Mr. Austin's health, always delicate, broke down, and with his
wife and daughter he went to Boulogne. Mrs. Austin made many friends
among the fishermen and their wives, but 'la belle Anglaise,' as they
called her, became quite a heroine on the occasion of the wreck of the
_Amphitrite_, a ship carrying female convicts to Botany Bay. She stood
the whole night on the beach in the howling storm, saved the lives of
three sailors who were washed up by the breakers, and dashed into the sea
and pulled one woman to shore. Lucie was with her mother, and showed the
same cool courage that distinguished her in after life. It was during
their stay at Boulogne that she first met Heinrich Heine; he sat next her
at the _table d'hote_, and, soon finding out that she spoke German
perfectly, told her when she returned to England she could tell her
friends she had met Heinrich Heine. He was much amused when she said:
'And who is Heinrich Heine?' The poet and the child used to lounge on
the pier together; she sang him old English ballads, and he told her
stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites, and a very funny old
French fiddler with a poodle, who was diligently taking three sea-baths a
day, were mixed up in a fanciful manner, sometimes humorous, often very
pathetic, especially when the water-sprites brought him greetings from
the North Sea. He afterwards told her that one of his most charming
poems,

'Wenn ich am deinem Hause
Des Morgens voruber geh',
So freut's mich, du liebe Kleine,
Wenn ich dich am Fenster seh',' etc.,

was meant for her whose magnificent eyes he never forgot.