"I shall die Mlle. d'Esgrignon," she said simply, turning to the
notary.

"For you there could be no fairer title," returned Chesnel, meaning to
convey a compliment. Poor Mlle. d'Esgrignon reddened.

"You have blundered, Chesnel," said the Marquis, flattered by the
steward's words, but vexed that his sister had been hurt. "A
d'Esgrignon may marry a Montmorency; their descent is not so pure as
ours. The d'Esgrignons bear or, two bends, gules," he continued, "and
nothing during nine hundred years has changed their scutcheon; as it
was at first, so it is to-day. Hence our device, Cil est nostre, taken
at a tournament in the reign of Philip Augustus, with the supporters,
a knight in armor or on the right, and a lion gules on the left."

"I do not remember that any woman I have ever met has struck my
imagination as Mlle. d'Esgrignon did," said Emile Blondet, to whom
contemporary literature is indebted for this history among other
things. "Truth to tell, I was a boy, a mere child at the time, and
perhaps my memory-pictures of her owe something of their vivid color
to a boy's natural turn for the marvelous.

"If I was playing with other children on the Parade, and she came to
walk there with her nephew Victurnien, the sight of her in the
distance thrilled me with very much the effect of galvanism on a dead
body. Child as I was, I felt as though new life had been given me.

"Mlle. Armande had hair of tawny gold; there was a delicate fine down
on her cheek, with a silver gleam upon it which I loved to catch,
putting myself so that I could see the outlines of her face lit up by
the daylight, and feel the fascination of those dreamy emerald eyes,
which sent a flash of fire through me whenever they fell upon my face.
I used to pretend to roll on the grass before her in our games, only
to try to reach her little feet, and admire them on a closer view. The
soft whiteness of her skin, her delicate features, the clearly cut
lines of her forehead, the grace of her slender figure, took me with a
sense of surprise, while as yet I did not know that her shape was
graceful, nor her brows beautiful, nor the outline of her face a
perfect oval. I admired as children pray at that age, without too
clearly understanding why they pray. When my piercing gaze attracted
her notice, when she asked me (in that musical voice of hers, with
more volume in it, as it seemed to me, than all other voices), 'What
are you doing little one? Why do yo