reckon time."

"Excuse me; but what did your tutor tell you to encourage you to work?"

"He used to say that a man was bound to make for himself in the world,
that fortune which Heaven had refused him at his birth. He added, that,
being a poor obscure orphan, I had no one but myself to look to; and
that nobody either did, or ever would, take any interest in me. I was
then in the hall I have spoken of, asleep from fatigue in fencing. My
preceptor was in his room on the first floor, just over me. Suddenly I
heard him exclaim: and then he called, 'Perronnette! Perronnette!' It
was my nurse whom he called."

"Yes; I know it," said Aramis. "Continue, monseigneur."

"Very likely she was in the garden; for my preceptor came hastily
downstairs. I rose, anxious at seeing him anxious. He opened the
garden-door, still crying out, 'Perronnette! Perronnette!' The windows
of the hall looked into the court; the shutters were closed; but through
a chink in them I saw my tutor draw near a large well, which was almost
directly under the windows of his study. He stooped over the brim,
looked into the well, again cried out, and made wild and affrighted
gestures. Where I was, I could not only see, but hear--and see and hear
I did."

"Go on, I pray you," said Aramis.

"Dame Perronnette came running up, hearing the governor's cries. He went
to meet her, took her by the arm, and drew her quickly toward the edge;
after which, as they both bent over it together, 'Look, look,' cried he,
'what a misfortune!'

"'Calm yourself, calm yourself,' said Perronnette; 'what is the matter?'

"'The letter!' he exclaimed; 'do you see that letter?' pointing to the
bottom of the well.

"'What letter?' she cried.

"'The letter you see down there; the last letter from the queen.'

"At this word I trembled. My tutor--he who passed for my father, he who
was continually I recommending me modesty and humility--in
correspondence with the queen!

"'The queen's last letter!' cried Perronnette, without showing more
astonishment than at seeing this letter at the bottom of the well; 'but
how came it there?'

"'A chance, Dame Perronnette--a singular chance. I was entering my
room, and on opening the door, the window, too, being open, a puff of
air came suddenly and carried off this paper--this letter of her
majesty's; I darted after it, and gained the window just in time to see
it flutter a moment in the breeze and disappear down the well.'

"'Well,' said