retiring entertained her with the history of his adventures. A few days, before his late departure he had given her in full the battle of Jena; but he was in very bad health, and would hardly survive the Russian campaign. When I asked how long it was since her father had departed this life, she laughed, and said she had never known one, and that her so-called mother had never been married.
"'Not married!' I cried; 'why, I myself saw her in London in deep mourning for her husband's death!'
"'Oh!' replied Laurence, 'she wore mourning all the time for twelve years, to awaken compassion as a poor widow, and also to take in some simpleton who wanted a wife. She hoped that she would sail the sooner under the black flag into the port of matrimony. But death had pity on her, and she perished suddenly by bursting a vein. I never loved her, for she gave me many a beating and little food. I should have starved if Monsieur Turlutu had not many a time given me a piece of bread on the sly; but for that the dwarf wanted me to marry him, and when his hopes were wrecked he allied himself to my mother—I say mother only from habit—and both tormented me cruelly. She was always saying I was a useless creature, and that the dog was worth a thousand times more than I with my
