ed the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent down
toward the ground, as if he were looking for a crown-piece in the dust.

"Good-morning, my dear host," cried D'Artagnan.

"Good-day to you; have you slept well?"

"Excellently, Athos, but what are you looking for? You are perhaps a
tulip fancier?"

"My dear friend, if I am, you must not laugh at me for being so. In the
country people alter; one gets to like, without knowing it, all those
beautiful objects that God causes to spring from the earth, which
are despised in cities. I was looking anxiously for some iris roots I
planted here, close to this reservoir, and which some one has trampled
upon this morning. These gardeners are the most careless people in the
world; in bringing the horse out to the water they've allowed him to
walk over the border."

D'Artagnan began to smile.

"Ah! you think so, do you?"

And he took his friend along the alley, where a number of tracks like
those which had trampled down the flowerbeds, were visible.

"Here are the horse's hoofs again, it seems, Athos," he said carelessly.

"Yes, indeed, the marks are recent."

"Quite so," replied the lieutenant.

"Who went out this morning?" Athos asked, uneasily. "Has any horse got
loose?"

"Not likely," answered the Gascon; "these marks are regular."

"Where is Raoul?" asked Athos; "how is it that I have not seen him?"

"Hush!" exclaimed D'Artagnan, putting his finger on his lips; and he
related what he had seen, watching Athos all the while.

"Ah, he's gone to Blois; the poor boy----"

"Wherefore?"

"Ah, to inquire after the little La Valliere; she has sprained her foot,
you know."

"You think he has?"

"I am sure of it," said Athos; "don't you see that Raoul is in love?"

"Indeed! with whom--with a child seven years old?"

"Dear friend, at Raoul's age the heart is so expansive that it must
encircle one object or another, fancied or real. Well, his love is half
real, half fanciful. She is the prettiest little creature in the world,
with flaxen hair, blue eyes,--at once saucy and languishing."

"But what say you to Raoul's fancy?"

"Nothing--I laugh at Raoul; but this first desire of the heart is
imperious. I remember, just at his age, how deep in love I was with
a Grecian statue which our good king, then Henry IV., gave my father,
insomuch that I was mad with grief when they told me that the story of
Pygmalion was nothing but a fable."

"It is mere want of