CHAPTER XVII.
I was in this terrible situation when the basket stopt .-- Oriental Tales--History of the Basket.
We took our way to the street in which Madame Laurent resided.

Meanwhile suffer me to get rid of myself, and to introduce you, dear Reader, to my friend, Monsieur Margot, the whole of whose adventures were subsequently detailed to me by the garrulous Mrs.Green.
At the hour appointed he knocked at the door of my fair countrywoman, and was carefully admitted.

He was attired in a dressing-gown of sea-green silk, in which his long, lean, hungry body, looked more like a river pike than any thing human.
"Madame," said he, with a solemn air, "I return you my best thanks for the honour you have done me--behold me at your feet!" and so saying the lean lover gravely knelt down on one knee.
"Rise, Sir," said Mrs.Green, "I confess that you have won my heart; but that is not all--you have yet to show that you are worthy of the opinion I have formed of you.

It is not, Monsieur Margot, your person that has won me--no! it is your chivalrous and noble sentiments--prove that these are genuine, and you may command all from my admiration." "In what manner shall I prove it, Madame," said Monsieur Margot, rising, and gracefully drawing his sea-green gown more closely round him.
"By your courage, your devotion, and your gallantry! I ask but one proof--you can give it me on the spot.

You remember, Monsieur, that in the days of romance, a lady threw her glove upon the stage on which a lion was exhibited, and told her lover to pick it up.