art of losing my servant and my
whole fortune in the abode of honest royal people, and I felt myself but
a poor outcast come to seek a princess for my sister, a guard stood by
the carriage, touching his cap, and asked me to follow him.

We ascended the broad steps. He gave the password to a sentinel there,
and held wide one leaf of the door. He took a candle; and otherwise dark
corridors and ante-chambers, somber with heavy Russian furnishings, rugs
hung against the walls, barbaric brazen vessels and curious vases,
passed like a half-seen vision.

Then the guard delivered me to a gentleman in a blue coat, with a red
collar, who belonged to the period of the Marquis du Plessy without
being adorned by his whiteness and lace. The gentleman staring at me,
strangely polite and full of suspicion, conducted me into a well-lighted
room where Skenedonk waited by the farther door, holding the jewel-case
as tenaciously as he would a scalp.

I entered the farther door. It closed behind me.

A girl stood in the center of this inner room, looking at me. I remember
none of its fittings, except that there was abundant light, showing her
clear blue eyes and fair hair, the transparency of her skin, and her
high expression. She was all in black, except a floating muslin cape or
fichu, making a beholder despise the finery of the Empire.

We must have examined each other even sternly, though I felt a sudden
giving way and heaving in my breast. She was so high, so sincere! If I
had been unfit to meet the eyes of that princess I must have shriveled
before her.

From side to side her figure swayed, and another young girl, the only
attendant in the room, stretched out both arms to catch her.

We put her on a couch, and she sat gasping, supported by the lady in
waiting. Then the tears ran down her face, and I kissed the transparent
hands, my own flesh and blood, I believed that hour as I believe to
this.

"O Louis--Louis!"

The wonder of her knowledge and acceptance of me, without a claim being
put forward, was around me like a cloud.

"You were so like my father as you stood there--I could see him again as
he parted from us! What miracle has restored you? How did you find your
way here? You are surely Louis?"

I sat down beside her, keeping one hand between mine.

"Madame, I believe as you believe, that I am Louis Charles, the dauphin
of France. And I have come to you first, as my own flesh and blood, who
must have more knowledge