affection more touching--never a
more graceful homage rendered to past happiness! Now, when can you set
out?"

"To-morrow."

"Why not to-day? Time is every thing here."

"Remember, monsieur, that we have purchases to make--we visit the
capital but rarely."

"Quite true; I was forgetting the solitude of your retreat. Such charms
might make any lapse of memory excusable."

"Oh, monsieur! I should be, indeed, touched by this flattery, if I could
but see the face of him who uttered it."

"Pardon me, fair Countess, if I do not respond to even the least of
your wishes; we shall both appear in our true colours one of these days.
Meanwhile, remember our proverb that says, 'It's not the cowl makes the
monk.' When you shall hear this again, it will be in your chateau of
Vaugirarde, and----"

"Is that the _consigne_, then?" said she, laughing.

"Yes, that is the _consigne_,--don't forget it;" and, with a graceful
salutation, the Marechal withdrew to perfect his further arrangements.

There was a listener to this scene, that none of its actors ever guessed
at--the poor actor, who, having lost his way among forests of pasteboard
and palaces of painted canvass, at last found himself at the back of a
pavilion, from which the speakers were not more than two paces distant.
Scarcely had the Marechal departed, than he followed his steps, and
made all haste to an obscure _auberge_ outside the barriers, where a
companion, poor and friendless as himself, awaited him. There is no need
to trace what ensued at this meeting. The farce-writer might, indeed,
make it effective enough, ending as it does in the resolve, that since
an engagement was denied them at Paris, they'd try their fortune at
Fontainebleau, by personating the two strangers, who were to arrive by a
hazard at the Chateau de Vaugirarde.

The whole plot is now seen. They set out, and in due time arrive at the
chateau. Their wardrobe and appearance generally are the very reverse of
what the fair Countess expected, but as their stage experiences supply a
certain resemblance to rank and distinction--at least to her notions
of such--she never doubts that they are the promised visitors, and is
convinced by the significant declaration, that if their wayworn looks
and strange costume seem little indicative of their actual position, yet
the Countess should remember, "It is not the cowl makes the monk."

The constraint with which each assumes a new character forms the second
er