object in view, she saw the young queen, whom, as we have already
seen, she had invited to pay her a visit in the morning. "I have good
news to tell you," she said to her; "the king has been saying the most
tender things about you. He is young, you know, and easily drawn away;
but so long as you keep near me, he will not venture to keep away from
you, to whom, besides, he is most warmly and affectionately attached. I
intend to have a lottery this evening and shall expect to see you."

"I have heard," said the young queen, with a sort of timid reproach,
"that your majesty intends to put in the lottery those lovely bracelets
whose rarity is so great that we ought not to allow them to pass out of
the custody of the crown, even were there no other reason than that they
had once belonged to you."

"My daughter," said Anne of Austria, who read the young queen's
thoughts, and wished to console her for not having received the
bracelets as a present, "it is positively necessary that I should induce
Madame to pass her time in my apartments."

"Madame!" said the young queen, blushing.

"Of course: would you not prefer to have a rival near you, whom you
could watch and influence, to knowing the king is with her, always as
ready to flirt as to be flirted with by her? The lottery I have proposed
is my means of attraction for that purpose; do you blame me?"

"Oh, no!" returned Maria Theresa, clapping her hands with a childlike
expression of delight.

"And you no longer regret, then, that I did not give you these
bracelets, as I at first intended to do?"

"Oh, no, no!"

"Very well; make yourself look as beautiful as possible that our supper
may be very brilliant; the gayer you seem, the more charming you appear,
and you will eclipse all the ladies present as much by your brilliancy
as by your rank."

Maria Theresa left full of delight. An hour afterwards, Anne of Austria
received a visit from Madame, whom she covered with caresses, saying,
"Excellent news! the king is charmed with my lottery."

"But I," replied Madame, "am not so greatly charmed: to see such
beautiful bracelets on any one's arms but yours or mine, is what I
cannot reconcile myself to."

"Well, well," said Anne of Austria, concealing by a smile a violent
pang she had just experienced, "do not look at things in the worst light
immediately."

"Ah, Madame, Fortune is blind, and I am told there are two hundred
tickets."

"Quite as many as that; but you cann