o get rid of this name.'

"'If I am at fault with it,' returned I, 'I will make public at once how
it has come to be attached to me without my seeking. Even if an owner of
it should occur, he must as a man of honour accept my explanation.'

"'True,' answered he, 'I am here to witness that. Do not change it for a
day or two. It would be excessively embarrassing for you were it to be
altered on this occasion, for the decrees have of late years been very
strict about birth.'

"'Would these decrees exclude me from this invitation?' I asked him.

"'Unquestionably,' he replied. 'And that would be too cruel; you are as
good a man as any of them.'

"'Very well,' I answered. 'Afterwards I can return to my proper
station.'

"But, dear mother, you cannot think what these words meant to me,
notwithstanding that I ought to have known it to be so. I left him at
once and fled into the park in order to hide my suffering. Oh, it is too
beautiful to lose--this sphere of honour and refinement, this world of
the lovely, the ancestral, this supreme enchantment of the earth. Having
tasted it, how can I return to the common and despised condition of
mankind in general! Mother, you who have taught me that this is my true
world, I leave it to you to answer.

"That afternoon we drove into the town of Fontainebleau, where there was
a very fine haberdasher, just come from Paris, who agreed to make me the
proper suit and to supply all the accessories. Two days after, I put on
the uniform of a _debutant_, which cost me pretty dear but made a fine
figure. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I longed for your spirit
to have been in the glass only to see your son in such an array. The
coat was dove-grey satin; waistcoat of dark red, finely figured, with
silver buttons; small clothes of red, white silk stockings, and jewelled
shoes with the red heels which are worn at Court. I also bought a new
dress sword. It has an openwork silver handle and guard; the blade
sheathed in a white scabbard, which is silver-mounted. I wore large
frills and a small French hat finely laced with gold; and I bought
besides long hunting-boots.

"I drove in our coach to the Palace. As I entered the gates the officer
of the guard espied the livery of the Chevalier, and immediately caused
his company to salute me, observing which all the gentlemen standing
near took off their hats and bowed to me. I drove into the Court of the
White Horse, a great square, one of the f