“After dinner they drove to the opera, where Eugenie’s face was welcomed back again by a score or more of lorgnettes leveled at her as she sat smilingly unconscious of the attention she was attracting, and with her mind far more occupied with the boy sleeping quietly in No. 512 than with the gay scene around her.
“The next morning there appeared in the French journals an advertisement for a young English maid, who could speak a little French, and before night Eugenie had been interviewed by at least a dozen girls, of all ages and sizes, wanting the place, but none of them quite suited. She would wait a little longer, she said, hoping to get just what she desired. The next day, at a very unfashionable hour, she drove to the picture gallery at the Louvre, and bidding her coachman leave her there, stationed herself in one of the halls of statuary, which she knew to be less frequented than some others, especially at that hour of the morning. And there she waited anxiously, now glancing through the open door as a new comer entered, and again pretending to be very busy with some broken-nosed or armless block of marble.
“Meanwhile Charles Patterson had settled his bill at the Louvre, and with his traveling-bag, the only piece of luggage brought from home, he passed from the court into the Rue de Rivoli, and crossing the street walked rapidly to the gallery of the Louvre, where madame was waiting for him. There were a few words spoken between them, and then both walked across the grounds to the street which skirts the river, where Eugenie called a carriage, and bade the coachman drive to a second-rate furnishing house in an obscure part of the city, with which she had once been more familiar than she was now. It was a tolerably large establishment and supplied her with what she wanted, an entire outfit of a good substantial kind for a young English girl serving in the capacity of waiting-maid. There were several bundles, but Fred’s bag held them all, except the round straw hat which Eugenie carried herself, closely wrapped in paper.
“‘Drive us to the station St. Lazare,’ she said to the coachman, and in the course of half an hour Fred found himself alone with his companion in a first-class carriage, speeding along toward Versailles.
“Eugenie had spoken to the conductor, and thus secured the carriage to herself and Fred so that there was no one to see them when they opened the bag, and brought out one by one the different articles which were to transform the boy Frederic Strong into the girl Fanny Shader, who was to be Eugenie’s waiting-maid. For that was the plan, and with a little shrug of her shoulders and a significant laugh Eugenie said:
“‘Now I go to sleep—very much asleep—while you make the grand toilet;’ and closing her eyes she leaned back in her seat, and to all human appearance slept soundly, while Fred arrayed himself in his feminine habiliments, which fitted him admirably and became him remarkably well. Fair-haired, pale-faced, blue-eyed and small, he had frequently taken the part of a girl in the little plays his school companions were always getting up in Millfield, so he was neither strange nor awkward in his new dress and character, but assumed both easily and naturally as if they had belonged to him all his life, and when at last he said:
“‘I am ready; you can wake up now,’ and Eugenie opened her eyes; she started in astonishment and wonder, for instead of the delicate boy who had been her companion, there sat a good-sized girl, in a neatly-fitting brown stuff dress and sacque, with bands of white linen at the throat and wrists, and a dark straw hat perched jauntily upon the hair parted in the middle and curling naturally. The disguise was perfect, and Eugenie exclaimed delightedly:
“‘Oh, Mon Dieu, c’est une grande success. You make such joli girl. Nobody suspect ever. Now you must be bien attentif to me. You carry my shawl; you pick up my mouchoir, so;’ and she dropped her handkerchief to see how adroitly the new maid would stoop and hand it to her. It was well done, and Eugenie continued:
“‘You act perfectly—perfectly. Now you not forget, but walk behind me always with the parcels, and not talk much with the other domestiques. Ah, ciel, but you cannot, you cannot speak much French to them, and that be good; but to me you speak French toujours; you learn it, which must be better by and by when the great trial comes.’
“They were now near to Versailles, and, when the long train stopped, Eugenie and her maid stepped out unobserved by any one; and as there was an interval of two hours or more before they could return to Paris, Eugenie spent it in showing her companion the beauties of the old Palace and its charming grounds. And Fanny was very attentive and very respectful to her mistress, and acted the role of waiting-maid to perfection, though occasionally there was a gleam of mischief in the blue eyes, and a comical smile lurking about the corners of the mouth, as Fred answered to the new name, or held up his skirts as they walked over a wet piece of ground.