d astonished. The name was not wholly
forgotten, but mixed up and confused with ancient recollections.

"Athos?" said she; "wait a moment."

And she placed her hands on her brow, as if to force the fugitive ideas
it contained to concentration in a moment.

"Shall I help you, madame?" asked Athos.

"Yes, do," said the duchess.

"This Athos was connected with three young musketeers, named Porthos,
D'Artagnan, and----"

He stopped short.

"And Aramis," said the duchess, quickly.

"And Aramis; I see you have not forgotten the name."

"No," she said; "poor Aramis; a charming man, elegant, discreet, and
a writer of poetical verses. I am afraid he has turned out ill," she
added.

"He has; he is an abbe."

"Ah, what a misfortune!" exclaimed the duchess, playing carelessly with
her fan. "Indeed, sir, I thank you; you have recalled one of the most
agreeable recollections of my youth."

"Will you permit me, then, to recall another to you?"

"Relating to him?"

"Yes and no."

"Faith!" said Madame de Chevreuse, "say on. With a man like you I fear
nothing."

Athos bowed. "Aramis," he continued, "was intimate with a young
needlewoman from Tours, a cousin of his, named Marie Michon."

"Ah, I knew her!" cried the duchess. "It was to her he wrote from
the siege of Rochelle, to warn her of a plot against the Duke of
Buckingham."

"Exactly so; will you allow me to speak to you of her?"

"If," replied the duchess, with a meaning look, "you do not say too much
against her."

"I should be ungrateful," said Athos, "and I regard ingratitude, not as
a fault or a crime, but as a vice, which is much worse."

"You ungrateful to Marie Michon, monsieur?" said Madame de Chevreuse,
trying to read in Athos's eyes. "But how can that be? You never knew
her."

"Eh, madame, who knows?" said Athos. "There is a popular proverb to the
effect that it is only mountains that never meet; and popular proverbs
contain sometimes a wonderful amount of truth."

"Oh, go on, monsieur, go on!" said Madame de Chevreuse eagerly; "you
can't imagine how much this conversation interests me."

"You encourage me," said Athos, "I will continue, then. That cousin of
Aramis, that Marie Michon, that needlewoman, notwithstanding her
low condition, had acquaintances in the highest rank; she called the
grandest ladies of the court her friend, and the queen--proud as she
is, in her double character as Austrian and as Spaniard--called her her
sister."