So Mam’selle Marie helped her aunt to rise, and we steadied the boat close under the bank, at a point where the interlacing roots of a couple of sallows made a kind of natural step by means of which they could easily get down.

“Oh, dear! dear! it will not turn over, will it, my dear young man? Ciel!  I am slipping ...  Ah, Dieu, merci!—­Marie, mon cher enfant, pray be careful not to jump in, or you will upset us all!”

And ma tante, somewhat tremulous from the ordeal of embarking, settled down in her place, while Mueller lifted Mam’selle Marie into the boat, as if she had been a child.  I then took the oars, leaving him to steer; and so we pursued our way towards Courbevoie.

“Mam’selle has of course seen the fair?” said Mueller, from behind the old lady’s back.

“No, monsieur,”

“No!  Is it possible?”

“There was so much crowd, monsieur, and such a noise ... we were quite too much afraid to venture in.”

“Would you be afraid, mam’selle, to venture with me?”

“I—­I do not know, monsieur.”

“Ah, mam’selle, you might be very sure that I would take good care of you!”

“Mais ... monsieur"...

“These gentlemen, I see, have been angling,” said the old lady, addressing me very graciously.  “Have you caught many fish?”

“None at all, madame!” I replied, loudly.

“Tiens! so many as that?”

“Pardon, madame,” I shouted at the top of my voice.  “We have caught nothing—­nothing at all.”

Ma tante smiled blandly.

“Ah, yes,” she said; “and you will have them cooked presently for dinner, n’est-ce pas?  There is no fish so fresh, and so well-flavored, as the fish of our own catching.”

“Will madame and mam’selle do us the honor to taste our fish and share our modest dinner?” said Mueller, leaning forward in his seat in the stern, and delivering his invitation close into the old lady’s ear.

To which ma tante, with a readiness of hearing for which no one would have given her credit, replied:—­

“But—­but monsieur is very polite—­if we should not be inconveniencing these gentlemen"....

“We shall be charmed, madame—­we shall be honored!”

“Eh bien! with pleasure, then—­Marie, my child, thank the gentlemen for their amiable invitation.”

I was thunderstruck.  I looked at Mueller to see if he had suddenly gone out of his senses.  Mam’selle Marie, however, was infinitely amused.

“Fi donc! monsieur,” she said.  “You have no fish.  I heard the other gentleman say so.”

“The other gentleman, mam’selle,” replied Mueller, “is an Englishman, and troubled with the spleen.  You must not mind anything he says.”