our little
lamb, our gentle dove, angry! Don't be afraid, Louise--Madame de
Saint-Remy will not come; and if she should, you know I have a quick
ear. Besides, what can be more permissible than to write to an old
friend of twelve years' standing, particularly when the letter begins
with the words 'Monsieur Raoul'?"

"It is all very well--I will not write to him at all," said the young
girl.

"Ah, ah! in good sooth, Montalais is properly punished," cried the
jeering brunette, still laughing. "Come, come! let us try another sheet
of paper, and finish our dispatch off-hand. Good! there is the bell
ringing now. By my faith, so much the worse! Madame must wait, or else
do without her first maid of honor this morning."

A bell, in fact, did ring; it announced that Madame had finished her
toilette, and waited for Monsieur to give her his hand, and conduct her
from the _salon_ to the refectory.

This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the husband and
wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, invariably
fixed at two o'clock.

The sound of this bell caused a door to be opened in the offices on the
left hand of the court, from which filed two _maitres d'hotel_ followed
by eight scullions bearing a kind of hand-barrow loaded with dishes
under silver covers.

One of the _maitres d'hotel_, the first in rank, touched one of the
guards, who was snoring on his bench, slightly with his wand; he even
carried his kindness so far as to place the halbert which stood against
the wall in the hands of the man stupid with sleep, after which the
soldier, without explanation, escorted the _viande_ of Monsieur to the
refectory, preceded by a page and the two _maitres d'hotel_.

Wherever the _viande_ passed, the soldiers ported arms.

Mademoiselle de Montalais and her companion had watched from their
window the details of this ceremony, to which, by the bye, they must
have been pretty well accustomed. But they did not look so much from
curiosity as to be assured they should not be disturbed. So, guards,
scullions, _maitres d'hotel_, and pages having passed, they resumed
their places at the table; and the sun, which, through the window-frame,
had for an instant fallen upon those two charming countenances, now only
shed its light upon the gilliflowers, primroses, and rose-tree.

"Bah!" said Mademoiselle de Montalais, taking her place again; "Madame
will breakfast very well without me!"

"Oh! Montalais, yo