every one?'

'Ah, they will love so much! I shall make you so happy there,' he
answered. 'There you will see what it is to be true and trustworthy.'

'I had rather live at Chateau Leurre, or my own Nid de Merle,' she
replied. 'There I should see Soeur Monique, and my aunt, the Abbess,
and we would have the peasants to dance in the castle court. Oh! if
you could but see the orchards at Le Bocage, you would never want to go
away. And we could come now and then to see my dear Queen.

'I am glad at least you would not live at court.'

'Oh, no, I have been more unhappy here than ever I knew could be borne.'

And a very few words from him drew out all that had happened to her
since they parted. Her father had sent her to Bellaise, a convent
founded by the first of the Angevin branch, which was presided over by
his sister, and where Diane was also educated. The good sister Monique
had been mistress of the _pensionnaires_, and had evidently taken much
pains to keep her charge innocent and devout. Diane had been taken to
court about two years before, but Eustacie had remained at the convent
till some three months since, when she had been appointed maid of honour
to the recently-married Queen; and her uncle had fetched her from Anjou,
and had informed her at the same time that her young husband had turned
Englishman and heretic, and that after a few formalities had been
complied with, she would become the wife of her cousin Narcisse. Now
there was no person whom she so much dreaded as Narcisse, and when
Berenger spoke of him as a feeble fop, she shuddered as though she knew
him to have something of the tiger.

'Do you remember Benoit?' she said; 'poor Benoit, who came to Normandy
as my _laquais_? When I went back to Anjou he married a girl from
Leurre, and went to aid his father at the farm. The poor fellow had
imbibed the Baron's doctrine--he spread it. It was reported that there
was a nest of Huguenots on the estate. My cousin came to break it up
with his _gens d'armes_ O Berenger, he would hear no entreaties, he
had no mercy; he let them assemble on Sunday, that they might be all
together. He fired the house; shot down those who escaped; if a prisoner
were made, gave him up to the Bishop's Court. Benoit, my poor good
Benoit, who used to lead my palfrey, was first wounded, then tried, and
burnt--burnt in the PLACE at Lucon! I heard Narcisse laugh--laugh as he
talked of the cries of the poor creatures in the conventicler. M