robe de chambre; he having nothing in his portman. teau but six shirts and a black silk pair of breeches. The mentioning the silk pair of breeches made an entire change of the article-for the breeches were accepted as an equivalent for the robe de chambre; and so it was stipulated and agreed upon that I should lie in my black silk breeches all night. 3dly. It was insisted upon, and stipulated for by the lady, that after Monsieur was got to bed, and the candle and fire extinguished, that Monsieur should not speak one single word the whole night. Granted: provided Monsieur saying his prayers might not be deemed an infraction of the treaty. There was but one point forgot in this treaty, and that was the manner in which the lady and myself should be obliged to undress and get to bed-there was but one way of doing it, and that, I leave to the reader to devise, protesting as I do it, that if it is not the most delicate in nature, it is the fault of his own imagination-against which this is not my first com plaint. Now when we were got to bed, whether it was the novelty of the situation, or what it was, I know not; but so it was, I could not shut my eyes; I tried this side and that, and turned and turned again, till a full hour after midnight; when nature and patience both wearing out-o my God! said I -You have broke the treaty, Monsieur, said the lady, who had no more slept than myself.-I begged a thousand pardons-but insisted it was no more than an ejaculation-she maintained it was an entire infraction of the treaty-I maintained it was provided for in the clause of the third article. The lady would by no means give up her point, though she weakened her barrier by it; for in the warmth of the dispute, I could hear two or three corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground. Upon my word and honour, Madame, said Istretching my arm out of bed, by way of asseveration -(I was going to have added, that I would not have tresspased against the remotest idea of decorum for the world) But the fille de chambre, hearing there were words between us, and fearing that hostilities would ensue of course, had crept silently out of her closet, and it being totally dark, had stolen so close to our beds, that she had got herself into the narrow passage which separated them, and had advanced so far up as to be in a line betwixt her mistress and me So that when I stretched out my hand, I caught hold of the fille de chambre's-—————— END OF SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. -Quo fata trahunt, retrahuntque sequamur, VIRGIL. |