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 and such a musical voice, and such a neat foot and ankle as hers, this respectability was much.

If he had had his way Fifi would have been locked up in a convent and only let out to be married to a person of the highest respectability. But Fifi, in her own gay little obstinate head, by no means relished schemes of this sort, and was fully determined on having both flirtations and a husband, malgré all Cartouche could say.

The curious part of it was she could not construct any plan of life leaving out Cartouche. She had known him so long; he had carried her many weary miles, in spite of his bad leg, in that journey so long ago, when Fifi was but a mite of a child; he had often brought her a dinner when she suspected he had none for himself; he had taught her all she knew, and was always teaching her.

The men in the company often spoke roughly to the women in it, and oftener still, were unduly familiar, but none of them ever spoke so to her, chiefly because there was nothing the matter with Cartouche's brawny arms, as he had told the Emperor. And if the man Fifi married did not treat her right, Cartouche, she knew, would beat him all to rags; and how could she, husband or no husband,