atulating another.

"I hope not, monseigneur, and with reason, as God has been pleased to
give them grace, intelligence, and beauty."

During this conversation, Louis XIV., conducted by Madame, accomplished,
as we have described, the circle of presentations.

"Mademoiselle Auricule," said the princess, presenting to his majesty a
fat, fair girl of two-and-twenty, who at a village fete might have
been taken for a peasant in Sunday finery,--"the daughter of my
music-mistress."

The king smiled. Madame had never been able to extract four correct
notes from either viol or harpsichord.

"Mademoiselle Aure de Montalais," continued Madame, "a young lady of
rank, and my good attendant."

This time it was not the king that smiled; it was the young lady
presented, because, for the first time in her life, she heard, given to
her by Madame, who generally showed no tendency to spoil her, such an
honorable qualification.

Our old acquaintance Montalais, therefore, made his majesty a profound
courtesy, the more respectful from the necessity she was under of
concealing certain contractions of her laughing lips, which the king
might not have attributed to their real cause.

It was just at this moment that the king caught the word which startled
him.

"And the name of the third?" asked Monsieur.

"Mary, monseigneur," replied the cardinal.

There was doubtless some magical influence in that word, for, as we have
said, the king started at hearing it, and drew Madame towards the middle
of the circle, as if he wished to put some confidential question to her,
but, in reality, for the sake of getting nearer to the cardinal.

"Madame my aunt," said he, laughing, and in a suppressed voice, "my
geography-master did not teach me that Blois was at such an immense
distance from Paris."

"What do you mean, nephew?" asked Madame.

"Why, because it would appear that it requires several years, as regards
fashion, to travel the distance!--Look at those young ladies!"

"Well; I know them all."

"Some of them are pretty."

"Don't say that too loud, monsieur my nephew; you will drive them wild."

"Stop a bit, stop a bit, dear aunt!" said the king, smiling; "for the
second part of my sentence will serve as a corrective to the first.
Well, my dear aunt, some of them appear old and others ugly, thanks to
their ten-year-old fashions."

"But, sire, Blois is only five days, journey from Paris."

"Yes, that is it," said the king: "two yea