gardens beneath, where the nightingales sang every night. The walls
and ceiling of this room were frescoed with the story of the love of
Ulysses and Calypso.

No one had occupied this particular room since the Duchesse de Berry,
and it contained the same magnificent hangings, chairs, tables, sofas,
consoles, girandoles, and what not, that unfortunate woman had used.
Count Saxe's belongings always seemed to be swearing at those of the
dead and gone duchess. Count Saxe called the room his study; but
rather, it should have been called his armory, for, instead of books,
he had in it all manner of arms and everything pertaining to a
soldier's life. He needed not books, being already instructed by his
own mother-wit in all that was of any real value to know. This matter
of reading is vastly overrated. There are persons who think it is the
mill that makes the water run. It is men like Count Saxe who give
occasion for books to be written.

This study, therefore, was a place of arms. On the walls hung all
manner of musketoons, fusils, and the like, with drawings of mortars
and field and siege artillery, with specimens of horses' bits and
saddles and stirrups, and everything relating to the equipment of a
soldier. There were a plenty of maps besides. On the great table in
the middle of the room was spread a huge map and many dozens of tin
manikins, about as high as my thumb; for anybody who thinks that Count
Saxe did not study the science of war, knows not the man.

He was at that moment sitting at the table, on which a dozen candles
gleamed. He was dressed in black and silver, a dress that showed off
his vivid beauty--for he was the most beautiful man who ever lived.
Not Francezka Capello's eyes were more brilliant, more soft than those
of Maurice of Saxe. Was it to be expected that with his beauty, his
figure, his voice, his charm, and above all, his genius, he should be
an anchorite? The women would not let him alone--that is the whole
truth. If I had been a woman I should have died of love for him.

"I thought you had gone back to Tatary, Babache," he cried, throwing
his leg over his chair, pushing away his map, and motioning me to a
seat. "Tell me your adventures."

I sat down and told him freely all that had happened from my strolling
into Madame Riano's garden until that moment.

"Peggy Kirkpatrick's garden," he said, absently tweaking my ear--a
way he had. "That woman is the devil's grandmother. When she is
awake t