'Alas, mademoiselle!' said I, 'I am no very perfect craftsman.
This is supposed to be a house, and you see the chimneys are awry.
You may call this a box if you are very indulgent; but see where my
tool slipped! Yes, I am afraid you may go from one to another, and
find a flaw in everything. Failures for Sale should be on my
signboard. I do not keep a shop; I keep a Humorous Museum.' I
cast a smiling glance about my display, and then at her, and
instantly became grave. 'Strange, is it not,' I added, 'that a
grown man and a soldier should be engaged upon such trash, and a
sad heart produce anything so funny to look at?'

An unpleasant voice summoned her at this moment by the name of
Flora, and she made a hasty purchase and rejoined her party.

A few days after she came again. But I must first tell you how she
came to be so frequent. Her aunt was one of those terrible British
old maids, of which the world has heard much; and having nothing
whatever to do, and a word or two of French, she had taken what she
called an INTEREST IN THE FRENCH PRISONERS. A big, bustling, bold
old lady, she flounced about our market-place with insufferable
airs of patronage and condescension. She bought, indeed, with
liberality, but her manner of studying us through a quizzing-glass,
and playing cicerone to her followers, acquitted us of any
gratitude. She had a tail behind her of heavy, obsequious old
gentlemen, or dull, giggling misses, to whom she appeared to be an
oracle. 'This one can really carve prettily: is he not a quiz
with his big whiskers?' she would say. 'And this one,' indicating
myself with her gold eye-glass, 'is, I assure you, quite an
oddity.' The oddity, you may be certain, ground his teeth. She
had a way of standing in our midst, nodding around, and addressing