"You ask what I think of the Intendant?" asked he, surprised somewhat at the question.

"Yes—an odd question, is it not, Le Gardeur?" and she smiled away any surprise he experienced.

"Truly, I think him the most jovial gentleman that ever was in New France," was the reply; "frank and open-handed to his friends, laughing and dangerous to his foes. His wit is like his wine, Angelique: one never tires of either, and no lavishness exhausts it. In a word, I, like the Intendant, I like his wit, his wine, his friends,—some of them, that is!—but above all, I like you, Angelique, and will be more his friend than ever for your sake, since I have learned his generosity towards the Chevalier des Meloises."

The Intendant had recently bestowed a number of valuable shares in the Grand Company upon the brother of Angelique, making the fortune of that extravagant young nobleman.

"I am glad you will be his friend, if only for my sake," added she, coquettishly. "But some great friends of yours like him not. Your sweet sister Amelie shrank like a sensitive plant at the mention of his name, and the Lady de Tilly put on her gravest look to-day when I spoke of the Chevalier Bigot."

Le Gardeur gave Angelique an equivocal look at mention of his sister. "My sister Amelie is an angel in the flesh," said he. "A man need be little less than divine to meet her full approval; and my good aunt has heard something of the genial life of the Intendant. One may excuse a reproving shake of her noble head."

"Colonel Philibert too! he shares in the sentiments of your aunt and sister, to say nothing of the standing hostility of his father, the Bourgeois," continued Angelique, provoked at Le Gardeur's want of adhesion.

"Pierre Philibert! He may not like the Intendant: he has reason for not doing so; but I stake my life upon his honor—he will never be unjust towards the Intendant or any man." Le Gardeur could not be drawn into a censure of his friend.

Angelique shielded adroitly the stiletto of innuendo she had drawn. "You say right," said she, craftily; "Pierre Philibert is a gentleman worthy of your regard. I confess I have seen no handsomer man in New France. I have been dreaming of one like him all my life! What a pity I saw you first, Le Gardeur!" added she, pulling him by the hair.

"I doubt you would throw me to the fishes were Pierre my rival, Angelique," replied he, merrily; "but I am in no danger: Pierre's affections are, I fancy, forestalled in a quarter where I need not be jealous of his success."

"I shall at any rate not be jealous of your sister, Le Gardeur," said Angelique, raising her face to his, suffused with a blush; "if I do not give you the love you ask for it is because you have it already; but ask no more at present from me—this, at least, is yours," said she, kissing him twice, without prudery or hesitation.

That kiss from those adored lips sealed his fate. It was the first—better it had been the last, better he had never been born than have drank the poison of her lips.

"Now answer me my questions, Le Gardeur," added she, after a pause of soft blandishments.

Le Gardeur felt her fingers playing with his hair, as, like Delilah, she cut off the seven locks of his strength.

"There is a lady at Beaumanoir; tell me who and what she is, Le Gardeur," said she.

He would not have hesitated to betray the gate of Heaven at her prayer; but, as it happened, Le Gardeur could not give her the special information she wanted as to the particular relation in which that lady stood to the Intendant. Angelique with wonderful coolness talked away, and laughed at the idea of the Intendant's gallantry. But she could get no confirmation of her suspicions from Le Gardeur. Her inquiry was for the present a failure, but she made Le Gardeur promise to learn what he could and tell her the result of his inquiries.

They sat long conversing together, until the bell of the Recollets sounded the hour of midnight. Angelique looked in the face of Le Gardeur with a meaning smile, as she counted each stroke with her dainty finger on his cheek. When finished, she sprang up and looked out of the lattice at the summer night.

The stars were twinkling like living things. Charles's Wain lay inverted in the northern horizon; Bootes had driven his sparkling herd down the slope of the western sky. A few thick tresses of her golden hair hung negligently over her bosom and shoulders. She placed her arm in Le Gardeur's, hanging heavily upon him as she directed his eyes to the starry heavens. The selfish schemes she carried in her bosom dropped for a moment to the ground. Her feet seemed to trample them into the dust, while she half resolved to be to this man all that he believed her to be, a true and devoted woman.

"Read my destiny, Le Gardeur," said she, earnestly. "You are a Seminarist. They say the wise fathers of the Seminary study deeply the science of the stars, and the students all become adepts in it."

"Would that my starry heaven were more propitious, Angelique," replied he, gaily kissing her eyes. "I care not for other skies than these! My fate and fortune are here."

Her bosom heaved with mingled passions. The word of hope and the word of denial struggled on her lips for mastery. Her blood throbbed quicker than the beat of the golden pendule on the marble table; but, like a bird, the good impulse again escaped her grasp.

"Look, Le Gardeur," said she. Her delicate finger pointed at Perseus, who was ascending the eastern heavens: "there is my star. Mere Malheur,—you know her,—she once said to me that that was my natal star, which would rule my life."

Like all whose passions pilot them, Angelique believed in destiny.

Le Gardeur had sipped a few drops of the cup of astrology from the venerable Professor Vallier. Angelique's finger pointed to the star Algol—that strange, mutable star that changes from bright to dark with the hours, and which some believe changes men's hearts to stone.

"Mere Malheur lied!" exclaimed he, placing his arm round her, as if to protect her from the baleful influence. "That cursed star never presided over your birth, Angelique! That is the demon star Algol."

Angelique shuddered, and pressed still closer to him, as if in fear.

"Mere Malheur would not tell me the meaning of that star, but bade me, if a saint, to watch and wait; if a sinner, to watch and pray. What means Algol, Le Gardeur?" she half faltered.

"Nothing for you, love. A fig for all the stars in the sky! Your bright eyes outshine them all in radiance, and overpower them in influence. All the music of the spheres is to me discord compared with the voice of Angelique des Meloises, whom alone I love!"

As he spoke a strain of heavenly harmony arose from the chapel of the Convent of the Ursulines, where they were celebrating midnight service for the safety of New France. Amid the sweet voices that floated up on the notes of the pealing organ was clearly distinguished that of Mere St. Borgia, the aunt of Angelique, who led the choir of nuns. In trills and cadences of divine melody the voice of Mere St. Borgia rose higher and higher, like a spirit mounting the skies. The words were indistinct, but Angelique knew them by heart. She had visited her aunt in the Convent, and had learned the new hymn composed by her for the solemn occasion.

As they listened with quiet awe to the supplicating strain, Angelique repeated to Le Gardeur the words of the hymn as it was sung by the choir of nuns:

"'Soutenez, grande Reine, Notre pauvre pays! Il est votre domaine, Faites fleurir nos lis! L'Anglais sur nos frontieres Porte ses etendards; Exauces nos prieres, Protegez nos remparts!'"

The hymn ceased. Both stood mute until the watchman cried the hour in the silent street.

"God bless their holy prayers, and good-night and God bless you, Angelique!" said Le Gardeur, kissing her. He departed suddenly, leaving a gift in the hand of Lizette, who courtesied low to him with a smile of pleasure as he passed out, while Angelique leaned out of the window listening to his horse's hoofs until the last tap of them died away on the stony pavement.

She threw herself upon her couch and wept silently. The soft music had touched her feelings. Le Gardeur's love was like a load of gold, crushing her with its weight. She could neither carry it onward nor throw it off. She fell at length into a slumber filled with troubled dreams. She was in a sandy wilderness, carrying a pitcher of clear, cold water, and though dying of thirst she would not drink, but perversely poured it upon the ground. She was falling down into unfathomable abysses and pushed aside the only hand stretched out to save her. She was drowning in deep water and she saw Le Gardeur buffeting the waves to rescue her but she wrenched herself out of his grasp. She would not be saved, and was lost! Her couch was surrounded with indefinite shapes of embryo evil.

She fell asleep at last. When she awoke the sun was pouring in her windows. A fresh breeze shook the trees. The birds sang gaily in the garden. The street was alive and stirring with people.

It was broad day. Angelique des Meloises was herself again. Her day-dream of ambition resumed its power. Her night-dream of love was over. Her fears vanished, her hopes were all alive, and she began to prepare for a possible morning call from the Chevalier Bigot.



CHAPTER XVII. SPLENDIDE MENDAX.

Amid the ruins of the once magnificent palace of the Intendant, massive fragments of which still remain to attest its former greatness, there may still be traced the outline of the room where Bigot walked restlessly up and down the morning after the Council of War. The disturbing letters he had received from France on both public and private affairs irritated him, while it set his fertile brain at work to devise means at once to satisfy the Marquise de Pompadour and to have his own way still.

The walls of his cabinet—now bare, shattered, and roofless with the blasts of six score winters—were hung with portraits of ladies and statesmen of the day; conspicuous among which was a fine picture from the pencil of Vanloo of the handsome, voluptuous Marquise de Pompadour.

With a world of faults, that celebrated dame, who ruled France in the name of Louis XV., made some amends by her persistent good nature and her love for art. The painter, the architect, the sculptor, and above all, the men of literature in France, were objects of her sincere admiration, and her patronage of them was generous to profusion. The picture of her in the cabinet of the Intendant had been a work of gratitude by the great artist who painted it, and was presented by her to Bigot as a mark of her friendship and demi-royal favor. The cabinet itself was furnished in a style of regal magnificence, which the Intendant carried into all details of his living.

The Chevalier de Pean, the Secretary and confidential friend of the Intendant, was writing at a table. He looked up now and then with a curious glance as the figure of his chief moved to and fro with quick turns across the room. But neither of them spoke.

Bigot would have been quite content with enriching himself and his friends, and turning out of doors the crowd of courtly sycophants who clamored for the plunder of the Colony. He had sense to see that the course of policy in which he was embarked might eventually ruin New France,—nay, having its origin in the Court, might undermine the whole fabric of the monarchy. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection that it could not be helped. He formed but one link in the great chain of corruption, and one link could not stand alone: it could only move by following those which went before and dragging after it those that came behind. Without debating a useless point of morals, Bigot quietly resigned himself to the service of his masters, or rather mistresses, after he had first served himself.

If the enormous plunder made out of the administration of the war by the great monopoly he had established were suddenly to cease, Bigot felt that his genius would be put to a severe test. But he had no misgivings, because he had no scruples. He was not the man to go under in any storm. He would light upon his feet, as he expressed it, if the world turned upside down.

Bigot suddenly stopped in his walk. His mind had been dwelling upon the great affairs of his Intendancy and the mad policy of the Court of Versailles. A new thought struck him. He turned and looked fixedly at his Secretary.

"De Pean!" said he. "We have not a sure hold of the Chevalier de Repentigny! That young fellow plays fast and loose with us. One who dines with me at the palace and sups with the Philiberts at the Chien d'Or cannot be a safe partner in the Grand Company!"

"I have small confidence in him, either," replied De Pean. "Le Gardeur has too many loose ends of respectability hanging about him to make him a sure hold for our game."

"Just so! Cadet, Varin, and the rest of you, have only half haltered the young colt. His training so far is no credit to you! The way that cool bully, Colonel Philibert, walked off with him out of Beaumanoir, was a sublime specimen of impudence. Ha! Ha! The recollection of it has salted my meat ever since! It was admirably performed! although, egad, I should have liked to run my sword through Philibert's ribs! and not one of you all was man enough to do it for me!"

"But your Excellency gave no hint, you seemed full of politeness towards Philibert," replied De Pean, with a tone that implied he would have done it had Bigot given the hint.

"Zounds! as if I do not know it! But it was provoking to be flouted, so politely too, by that whelp of the Golden Dog! The influence of that Philibert is immense over young De Repentigny. They say he once pulled him out of the water, and is, moreover, a suitor of the sister, a charming girl, De Pean! with no end of money, lands, and family power. She ought to be secured as well as her brother in the interests of the Grand Company. A good marriage with one of our party would secure her, and none of you dare propose, by God!"

"It is useless to think of proposing to her," replied De Pean. "I know the proud minx. She is one of the angelic ones who regard marriage as a thing of Heaven's arrangement. She believes God never makes but one man for one woman, and it is her duty to marry him or nobody. It is whispered among the knowing girls who went to school with her at the Convent,—and the Convent girls do know everything, and something more,—that she always cherished a secret affection for this Philibert, and that she will marry him some day."

"Marry Satan! Such a girl as that to marry a cursed Philibert!" Bigot was really irritated at the information. "I think," said he, "women are ever ready to sail in the ships of Tarshish, so long as the cargo is gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks! It speaks ill for the boasted gallantry of the Grand Company if not one of them can win this girl. If we could gain her over we should have no difficulty with the brother, and the point is to secure him."

"There is but one way I can see, your Excellency." De Pean did not appear to make his suggestion very cheerfully, but he was anxious to please the Intendant.

"How is that?" the Intendant asked sharply. He had not the deepest sense of De Pean's wisdom.

"We must call in woman to fight woman in the interests of the Company," replied the Secretary.

"A good scheme if one could be got to fight and win! But do you know any woman who can lay her fingers on Le Gardeur de Repentigny and pull him out from among the Honnetes Gens?"

"I do, your Excellency. I know the very one can do it," replied De Pean confidently.

"You do! Why do you hesitate then? Have you any arriere pensee that keeps you from telling her name at once?" asked the Intendant impatiently.

"It is Mademoiselle des Meloises. She can do it, and no other woman in New France need try!" replied De Pean.

"Why, she is a clipper, certainly! Bright eyes like hers rule the world of fools—and of wise men, too," added Bigot in a parenthesis. "However, all the world is caught by that bird-lime. I confess I never made a fool of myself but a woman was at the bottom of it. But for one who has tripped me up, I have taken sweet revenge on a thousand. If Le Gardeur be entangled in Nerea's hair, he is safe in our toils. Do you think Angelique is at home, De Pean?"

The Intendant looked up at the clock. It was the usual hour for morning calls in Quebec.

"Doubtless she is at home at this hour, your Excellency," replied De Pean. "But she likes her bed, as other pretty women do, and is practising for the petite levee, like a duchess. I don't suppose she is up!"

"I don't know that," replied Bigot. "A greater runagate in petticoats there is not in the whole city! I never pass through the streets but I see her."

"Ay, that is because she intends to meet your Excellency!" Bigot looked sharply at De Pean. A new thought flashed in his eyes.

"What! think you she makes a point of it, De Pean?"

"I think she would not go out of the way of your Excellency." De Pean shuffled among his papers, but his slight agitation was noticed by the Intendant.

"Hum! is that your thought, De Pean? Looks she in this quarter?" Bigot meditated with his hand on his chin for a moment or two. "You think she is doubtless at home this morning?" added he.

"It was late when De Repentigny left her last night, and she would have long and pleasant dreams after that visit, I warrant," replied the Secretary.

"How do you know? By St. Picot! You watch her closely, De Pean!"

"I do, your Excellency: I have reason," was the reply.

De Pean did not say what his reason for watching Angelique was; neither did Bigot ask. The Intendant cared not to pry into the personal matters of his friends. He had himself too much to conceal not to respect the secrets of his associates.

"Well, De Pean! I will wait on Mademoiselle des Meloises this morning. I will act on your suggestion, and trust I shall not find her unreasonable."

"I hope your Excellency will not find her unreasonable, but I know you will, for if ever the devil of contradiction was in a woman he is in Angelique des Meloises!" replied De Pean savagely, as if he spoke from some experience of his own.

"Well, I will try to cast out that devil by the power of a still stronger one. Ring for my horse, De Pean!"

The Secretary obeyed and ordered the horse. "Mind, De Pean!" continued the Intendant. "The Board of the Grand Company meet at three for business! actual business! not a drop of wine upon the table, and all sober! not even Cadet shall come in if he shows one streak of the grape on his broad face. There is a storm of peace coming over us, and it is necessary to shorten sail, take soundings, and see where we are, or we may strike on a rock."

The Intendant left the palace attended by a couple of equerries. He rode through the palace gate and into the city. Habitans and citizens bowed to him out of habitual respect for their superiors. Bigot returned their salutations with official brevity, but his dark face broke into sunshine as he passed ladies and citizens whom he knew as partners of the Grand Company or partizans of his own faction.

As he rode rapidly through the streets many an ill wish followed him, until he dismounted before the mansion of the Des Meloises.

"As I live, it is the Royal Intendant himself," screamed Lizette, as she ran, out of breath, to inform her mistress, who was sitting alone in the summer-house in the garden behind the mansion, a pretty spot tastefully laid out with flower beds and statuary. A thick hedge of privet, cut into fantastic shapes by some disciple of the school of Lenotre, screened it from the slopes that ran up towards the green glacis of Cape Diamond.

Angelique looked beautiful as Hebe the golden-haired, as she sat in the arbor this morning. Her light morning dress of softest texture fell in graceful folds about her exquisite form. She held a Book of Hours in her hand, but she had not once opened it since she sat down. Her dark eyes looked not soft, nor kindly, but bright, defiant, wanton, and even wicked in their expression, like the eyes of an Arab steed, whipped, spurred, and brought to a desperate leap—it may clear the wall before it, or may dash itself dead against the stones. Such was the temper of Angelique this morning.

Hard thoughts and many respecting the Lady of Beaumanoir, fond almost savage regret at her meditated rejection of De Repentigny, glittering images of the royal Intendant and of the splendors of Versailles, passed in rapid succession through her brain, forming a phantasmagoria in which she colored everything according to her own fancy. The words of her maid roused her in an instant.

"Admit the Intendant and show him into the garden, Lizette. Now!" said she, "I shall end my doubts about that lady! I will test the Intendant's sincerity,—cold, calculating woman-slayer that he is! It shames me to contrast his half-heartedness with the perfect adoration of my handsome Le Gardeur de Repentigny!"

The Intendant entered the garden. Angelique, with that complete self-control which distinguishes a woman of half a heart or no heart at all, changed her whole demeanor in a moment from gravity to gayety. Her eyes flashed out pleasure, and her dimples went and came, as she welcomed the Intendant to her arbor.

"A friend is never so welcome as when he comes of his own accord!" said she, presenting her hand to the Intendant, who took it with empressement. She made room for him on the seat beside her, dashing her skirts aside somewhat ostentatiously.

Bigot looked at her admiringly. He thought he had never seen, in painting, statuary, or living form, a more beautiful and fascinating woman.

Angelique accepted his admiration as her due, feeling no thanks, but looking many.

"The Chevalier Bigot does not lose his politeness, however long he absents himself!" said she, with a glance like a Parthian arrow well aimed to strike home.

"I have been hunting at Beaumanoir," replied he extenuatingly; "that must explain, not excuse, my apparent neglect." Bigot felt that he had really been a loser by his absence.

"Hunting! indeed!" Angelique affected a touch of surprise, as if she had not known every tittle of gossip about the gay party and all their doings at the Chateau. "They say game is growing scarce near the city, Chevalier," continued she nonchalantly, "and that a hunting party at Beaumanoir is but a pretty menotomy for a party of pleasure is that true?"

"Quite true, mademoiselle," replied he, laughing. "The two things are perfectly compatible,—like a brace of lovers, all the better for being made one."

"Very gallantly said!" retorted she, with a ripple of dangerous laughter. "I will carry the comparison no farther. Still, I wager, Chevalier, that the game is not worth the hunt."

"The play is always worth the candle, in my fancy," said he, with a glance of meaning; "but there is really good game yet in Beaumanoir, as you will confess, Mademoiselle, if you will honor our party some day with your presence."

"Come now, Chevalier," replied she, fixing him mischievously with her eyes, "tell me, what game do you find in the forest of Beaumanoir?"

"Oh! rabbits, hares, and deer, with now and then a rough bear to try the mettle of our chasseurs."

"What! no foxes to cheat foolish crows? no wolves to devour pretty Red Riding Hoods straying in the forest? Come, Chevalier, there is better game than all that," said she.

"Oh, yes!" he half surmised she was rallying him now—"plenty, but we don't wind horns after them."

"They say," continued she, "there is much fairer game than bird or beast in the forest of Beaumanoir, Chevalier." She went on recklessly, "Stray lambs are picked up by intendants sometimes, and carried tenderly to the Chateau! The Intendant comprehends a gentleman's devoirs to our sex, I am sure."

Bigot understood her now, and gave an angry start. Angelique did not shrink from the temper she had evoked.

"Heavens! how you look, Chevalier!" said she, in a tone of half banter. "One would think I had accused you of murder instead of saving a fair lady's life in the forest; although woman-killing is no murder I believe, by the laws of gallantry, as read by gentlemen—of fashion."

Bigot rose up with a hasty gesture of impatience and sat down again. After all, he thought, what could this girl know about Caroline de St. Castin? He answered her with an appearance of frankness, deeming that to be the best policy.

"Yes, Mademoiselle, I one day found a poor suffering woman in the forest. I took her to the Chateau, where she now is. Many ladies beside her have been to Beaumanoir. Many more will yet come and go, until I end my bachelordom and place one there in perpetuity as 'mistress of my heart and home,' as the song says."

Angelique could coquette in half-meanings with any lady of honor at Court. "Well, Chevalier, it will be your fault not to find one fit to place there. They walk every street of the city. But they say this lost and found lady is a stranger?"

"To me she is—not to you, perhaps, Mademoiselle!"

The fine ear of Angelique detected the strain of hypocrisy in his speech. It touched a sensitive nerve. She spoke boldly now.

"Some say she is your wife, Chevalier Bigot!" Angelique gave vent to a feeling long pent-up. She who trifled with men's hearts every day was indignant at the least symptom of repayment in kind. "They say she is your wife or, if not your wife, she ought to be, Chevalier,—and will be, perhaps, one of these fine days, when you have wearied of the distressed damsels of the city."

It had been better for Bigot, better for Angelique, that these two could have frankly understood each other. Bigot, in his sudden admiration of the beauty of this girl, forgot that his object in coming to see her had really been to promote a marriage, in the interests of the Grand Company, between her and Le Gardeur. Her witcheries had been too potent for the man of pleasure. He was himself caught in the net he spread for another. The adroit bird-catching of Angelique was too much for him in the beginning: Bigot's tact and consummate heartlessness with women, might be too much for her in the end. At the present moment he was fairly dazzled with her beauty, spirit, and seductiveness.

"I am a simple quail," thought he, "to be caught by her piping. Par Dieu! I am going to make a fool of myself if I do not take care! Such a woman as this I have not found between Paris and Naples. The man who gets her, and knows how to use her, might be Prime Minister of France. And to fancy it—I came here to pick this sweet chestnut out of the fire for Le Gardeur de Repentigny! Francois Bigot! as a man of gallantry and fashion I am ashamed of you!"

These were his thoughts, but in words he replied, "The lady of Beaumanoir is not my wife, perhaps never will be." Angelique's eager question fell on very unproductive ground.

Angelique repeated the word superciliously. "'Perhaps!' 'Perhaps' in the mouth of a woman is consent half won; in the mouth of a man I know it has a laxer meaning. Love has nothing to say to 'perhaps': it is will or shall, and takes no 'perhaps' though a thousand times repeated!

"And you intend to marry this treasure trove of the forest—perhaps?" continued Angelique, tapping the ground with a daintier foot than the Intendant had ever seen before.

"It depends much on you, Mademoiselle des Meloises," said he. "Had you been my treasure-trove, there had been no 'perhaps' about it." Bigot spoke bluntly, and to Angelique it sounded like sincerity. Her dreams were accomplished. She trembled with the intensity of her gratification, and felt no repugnance at his familiar address.

The Intendant held out his hand as he uttered the dulcet flattery, and she placed her hand in his, but it was cold and passionless. Her heart did not send the blood leaping into her finger-ends as when they were held in the loving grasp of Le Gardeur.

"Angelique!" said he. It was the first time the Intendant had called her by her name. She started. It was the unlocking of his heart she thought, and she looked at him with a smile which she had practised with infallible effect upon many a foolish admirer.

"Angelique, I have seen no woman like you, in New France or in Old; you are fit to adorn a Court, and I predict you will—if—if—"

"If what, Chevalier?" Her eyes fairly blazed with vanity and pleasure. "Cannot one adorn Courts, at least French Courts, without if's?"

"You can, if you choose to do so," replied he, looking at her admiringly; for her whole countenance flashed intense pleasure at his remark.

"If I choose to do so? I do choose to do so! But who is to show me the way to the Court, Chevalier? It is a long and weary distance from New France."

"I will show you the way, if you will permit me, Angelique: Versailles is the only fitting theatre for the display of beauty and spirit like yours."

Angelique thoroughly believed this, and for a few moments was dazzled and overpowered by the thought of the golden doors of her ambition opened by the hand of the Intendant. A train of images, full-winged and as gorgeous as birds of paradise, flashed across her vision. La Pompadour was getting old, men said, and the King was already casting his eyes round the circle of more youthful beauties in his Court for a successor. "And what woman in the world," thought she, "could vie with Angelique des Meloises if she chose to enter the arena to supplant La Pompadour? Nay, more! If the prize of the King were her lot, she would outdo La Maintenon herself, and end by sitting on the throne."

Angelique was not, however, a milkmaid to say yes before she was asked. She knew her value, and had a natural distrust of the Intendant's gallant speeches. Moreover, the shadow of the lady of Beaumanoir would not wholly disappear. "Why do you say such flattering things to me, Chevalier?" asked she. "One takes them for earnest coming from the Royal Intendant. You should leave trifling to the idle young men of the city, who have no business to employ them but gallanting us women."

"Trifling! By St. Jeanne de Choisy, I was never more in earnest, Mademoiselle!" exclaimed Bigot. "I offer you the entire devotion of my heart." St. Jeanne de Choisy was the sobriquet in the petits appartements for La Pompadour. Angelique knew it very well, although Bigot thought she did not.

"Fair words are like flowers, Chevalier," replied she, "sweet to smell and pretty to look at; but love feeds on ripe fruit. Will you prove your devotion to me if I put it to the test?"

"Most willingly, Angelique!" Bigot thought she contemplated some idle freak that might try his gallantry, perhaps his purse. But she was in earnest, if he was not.

"I ask, then, the Chevalier Bigot that before he speaks to me again of love or devotion, he shall remove that lady, whoever she may be, from Beaumanoir!" Angelique sat erect, and looked at him with a long, fixed look, as she said this.

"Remove that lady from Beaumanoir!" exclaimed he in complete surprise; "surely that poor shadow does not prevent your accepting my devotion, Angelique?"

"Yes, but it does, Chevalier! I like bold men. Most women do, but I did not think that even the Intendant of New France was bold enough to make love to Angelique des Meloises while he kept a wife or mistress in stately seclusion at Beaumanoir!"

Bigot cursed the shrewishness and innate jealousy of the sex, which would not content itself with just so much of a man's favor as he chose to bestow, but must ever want to rule single and alone. "Every woman is a despot," thought he, "and has no mercy upon pretenders to her throne."

"That lady," replied he, "is neither wife nor mistress, Mademoiselle: she sought the shelter of my roof with a claim upon the hospitality of Beaumanoir.

"No doubt"—Angelique's nostril quivered with a fine disdain—"the hospitality of Beaumanoir is as broad and comprehensive as its master's admiration for our sex!" said she.

Bigot was not angry. He gave a loud laugh. "You women are merciless upon each other, Mademoiselle!" said he.

"Men are more merciless to women when they beguile us with insincere professions," replied she, rising up in well-affected indignation.

"Not so, Mademoiselle!" Bigot began to feel annoyed. "That lady is nothing to me," said he, without rising as she had done. He kept his seat.

"But she has been! you have loved her at some time or other! and she is now living on the scraps and leavings of former affection. I am never deceived, Chevalier!" continued she, glancing down at him, a wild light playing under her long eyelashes like the illumined under-edge of a thundercloud.

"But how in St. Picot's name did you arrive at all this knowledge, Mademoiselle?" Bigot began to see that there was nothing for it but to comply with every caprice of this incomprehensible girl if he would carry his point.

"Oh, nothing is easier than for a woman to divine the truth in such matters, Chevalier," said she. "It is a sixth sense given to our sex to protect our weakness: no man can make love to two women but each of them knows instinctively to her finger-tips that he is doing it."

"Surely woman is a beautiful book written in golden letters, but in a tongue as hard to understand as hieroglyphics of Egypt." Bigot was quite puzzled how to proceed with this incomprehensible girl.

"Thanks for the comparison, Chevalier," replied she, with a laugh. "It would not do for men to scrutinize us too closely, yet one woman reads another easily as a horn-book of Troyes, which they say is so easy that the children read it without learning."

To boldly set at defiance a man who had boasted a long career of success was the way to rouse his pride, and determine him to overcome her resistance. Angelique was not mistaken. Bigot saw her resolution, and, although it was with a mental reservation to deceive her, he promised to banish Caroline from his chateau.

"It was always my good fortune to be conquered in every passage of arms with your sex, Angelique," said he, at once radiant and submissive. "Sit down by me in token of amity."

She complied without hesitation, and sat down by him, gave him her hand again, and replied with an arch smile, while a thousand inimitable coquetries played about her eyes and lips, "You speak now like an amant magnifique, Chevalier!

"'Quelque fort qu'on s'en defende, Il y faut venir un jour!'"

"It is a bargain henceforth and forever, Angelique!" said he; "but I am a harder man than you imagine: I give nothing for nothing, and all for everything. Will you consent to aid me and the Grand Company in a matter of importance?"

"Will I not? What a question, Chevalier! Most willingly I will aid you in anything proper for a lady to do!" added she, with a touch of irony.

"I wish you to do it, right or wrong, proper or improper, although there is no impropriety in it. Improper becomes proper if you do it, Mademoiselle!"

"Well, what is it, Chevalier,—this fearful test to prove my loyalty to the Grand Company, and which makes you such a matchless flatterer?"

"Just this, Angelique!" replied he. "You have much influence with the Seigneur de Repentigny?"

Angelique colored up to the eyes. "With Le Gardeur! What of him? I can take no part against the Seigneur de Repentigny;" said she, hastily.

"Against him? For him! We fear much that he is about to fall into the hands of the Honnetes Gens: you can prevent it if you will, Angelique?"

"I have an honest regard for the Seigneur de Repentigny!" said she, more in answer to her own feelings than to the Intendant's remark—her cheek flushed, her fingers twitched nervously at her fan, which she broke in her agitation and threw the pieces vehemently upon the ground. "I have done harm enough to Le Gardeur I fear," continued she. "I had better not interfere with him any more! Who knows what might result?" She looked up almost warningly at the Intendant.

"I am glad to find you so sincere a friend to Le Gardeur," remarked Bigot, craftily. "You will be glad to learn that our intention is to elevate him to a high and lucrative office in the administration of the Company, unless the Honnetes Gens are before us in gaining full possession of him."

"They shall not be before us if I can prevent it, Chevalier," replied she, warmly. She was indeed grateful for the implied compliment to Le Gardeur. "No one will be better pleased at his good fortune than myself."

"I thought so. It was partly my business to tell you of our intentions towards Le Gardeur."

"Indeed!" replied she, in a tone of pique. "I flattered myself your visit was all on my own account, Chevalier."

"So it was." Bigot felt himself on rather soft ground. "Your brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, has doubtless consulted you upon the plan of life he has sketched out for both of you?"

"My good brother sketches so many plans of life that I really am not certain I know the one you refer to." She guessed what was coming, and held her breath hard until she heard the reply.

"Well, you of course know that his plan of life depends mainly upon an alliance between yourself and the Chevalier de Repentigny."

She gave vent to her anger and disappointment. She rose up suddenly, and, grasping the Intendant's arm fiercely, turned him half round in her vehemence. "Chevalier Bigot! did you come here to propose for me on behalf of Le Gardeur de Repentigny?"

"Pardon me, Mademoiselle; it is no proposal of mine,—on behalf of Le Gardeur. I sanctioned his promotion. Your brother, and the Grand Company generally, would prefer the alliance. I don't!" He said this with a tone of meaning which Angelique was acute enough to see implied Bigot's unwillingness to her marrying any man—but himself, was the addendum she at once placed to his credit. "I regret I mentioned it," continued he, blandly, "if it be contrary to your wishes."

"It is contrary to my wishes," replied she, relaxing her clutch of his arm. "Le Gardeur de Repentigny can speak for himself. I will not allow even my brother to suggest it; still less will I discuss such a subject with the Chevalier Bigot."

"I hope you will pardon me, Mademoiselle—I will not call you Angelique until you are pleased with me again. To be sure, I should never have forgiven you had you conformed to your brother's wishes. It was what I feared might happen, and I—I wished to try you; that was all!"

"It is dangerous trying me, Chevalier," replied she, resuming her seat with some heat. "Don't try me again, or I shall take Le Gardeur out of pure SPITE," she said. Pure love was in her mind, but the other word came from her lips. "I will do all I can to rescue him from the Honnetes Gens, but not by marrying him, Chevalier,—at present."

They seemed to understand each other fully. "It is over with now," said Bigot. "I swear to you, Angelique, I did not mean to offend you,—you cut deep."

"Pshaw!" retorted she, smiling. "Wounds by a lady are easily cured: they seldom leave a mark behind, a month after."

"I don't know that. The slight repulse of a lady's finger—a touch that would not crush a gnat—will sometimes kill a strong man like a sword-stroke. I have known such things to happen," said Bigot.

"Well, happily, my touch has not hurt you, Chevalier. But, having vindicated myself, I feel I owe you reparation. You speak of rescuing Le Gardeur from the Honnetes Gens. In what way can I aid you?"

"In many ways and all ways. Withdraw him from them. The great festival at the Philiberts—when is it to be?"

"To-morrow! See, they have honored me with a special invitation." She drew a note from her pocket. "This is very polite of Colonel Philibert, is it not?" said she.

Bigot glanced superciliously at the note. "Do you mean to go, Angelique?" asked he.

"No; although, had I no feelings but my own to consult, I would certainly go."

"Whose feelings do you consult, Angelique," asked the Intendant, "if not your own?"

"Oh, don't be flattered,—the Grand Company's! I am loyal to the association without respect to persons."

"So much the better," said he. "By the way, it would not be amiss to keep Le Gardeur away from the festival. These Philiberts and the heads of the Honnetes Gens have great sway over him."

"Naturally; they are all his own kith and kin. But I will draw him away, if you desire it. I cannot prevent his going, but I can find means to prevent his staying!" added she, with a smile of confidence in her power.

"That will do, Angelique,—anything to make a breach between them!"

While there were abysses in Bigot's mind which Angelique could not fathom, as little did Bigot suspect that, when Angelique seemed to flatter him by yielding to his suggestions, she was following out a course she had already decided upon in her own mind from the moment she had learned that Cecile Tourangeau was to be at the festival of Belmont, with unlimited opportunities of explanation with Le Gardeur as to her treatment by Angelique.

The Intendant, after some pleasant badinage, rose and took his departure, leaving Angelique agitated, puzzled, and dissatisfied, on the whole, with his visit. She reclined on the seat, resting her head on her hand for a long time,—in appearance the idlest, in reality the busiest, brain of any girl in the city of Quebec. She felt she had much to do,—a great sacrifice to make,—but firmly resolved, at whatever cost, to go through with it; for, after all, the sacrifice was for herself, and not for others.



CHAPTER XVIII. THE MEROVINGIAN PRINCESS.

The interior of the Cathedral of St. Marie seemed like another world, in comparison with the noisy, bustling Market Place in front of it.

The garish sunshine poured hot and oppressive in the square outside, but was shorn of its strength as it passed through the painted windows of the Cathedral, filling the vast interior with a cool, dim, religious light, broken by tall shafts of columns, which swelled out into ornate capitals, supporting a lofty ceiling, on which was painted the open heavens with saints and angels adoring the Lord.

A lofty arch of cunning work overlaid with gold, the masterpiece of Le Vasseur, spanned the chancel, like the rainbow round the throne. Lights were burning on the altar, incense went up in spirals to the roof; and through the wavering cloud the saints and angels seemed to look down with living faces upon the crowd of worshippers who knelt upon the broad floor of the church.

It was the hour of Vespers. The voice of the priest was answered by the deep peal of the organ and the chanting of the choir. The vast edifice was filled with harmony, in the pauses of which the ear seemed to catch the sound of the river of life as it flows out of the throne of God and the Lamb.

The demeanor of the crowd of worshippers was quiet and reverential. A few gay groups, however, whose occupation was mainly to see and be seen, exchanged the idle gossip of the day with such of their friends as they met there. The fee of a prayer or two did not seem excessive for the pleasure, and it was soon paid.

The perron outside was a favorite resort of the gallants of fashion at the hour of Vespers, whose practice it was to salute the ladies of their acquaintance at the door by sprinkling their dainty fingers with holy water. Religion combined with gallantry is a form of devotion not quite obsolete at the present day, and at the same place.

The church door was the recognized spot for meeting, gossip, business, love-making, and announcements; old friends stopped to talk over the news, merchants their commercial prospects. It was at once the Bourse and the Royal Exchange of Quebec: there were promulgated, by the brazen lungs of the city crier, royal proclamations of the Governor, edicts of the Intendant, orders of the Court of Justice, vendues public and private,—in short, the life and stir of the city of Quebec seemed to flow about the door of St. Marie as the blood through the heart of a healthy man.

A few old trees, relics of the primeval forest, had been left for shade and ornament in the great Market Place. A little rivulet of clear water ran sparkling down the slope of the square, where every day the shadow of the cross of the tall steeple lay over it like a benediction.

A couple of young men, fashionably dressed, loitered this afternoon near the great door of the Convent in the narrow Street that runs into the great square of the market. They walked about with short, impatient turns, occasionally glancing at the clock of the Recollets, visible through the tall elms that bounded the garden of the Gray Friars. Presently the door of the Convent opened. Half a dozen gaily-attired young ladies, internes or pupils of the Convent, sallied out. They had exchanged their conventual dress for their usual outside attire, and got leave to go out into the world on some errand, real or pretended, for one hour and no more.

They tripped lightly down the broad steps, and were instantly joined by the young men who had been waiting for them. After a hasty, merry hand-shaking, the whole party proceeded in great glee towards the Market Place, where the shops of the mercers and confectioners offered the attractions they sought. They went on purchasing bonbons and ribbons from one shop to another until they reached the Cathedral, when a common impulse seized them to see who was there. They flew up the steps and disappeared in the church.

In the midst of their devotions, as they knelt upon the floor, the sharp eyes of the young ladies were caught by gesticulations of the well-gloved hand of the Chevalier des Meloises, as he saluted them across the aisle.

The hurried recitation of an Ave or two had quite satisfied the devotion of the Chevalier, and he looked round the church with an air of condescension, criticizing the music and peering into the faces of such of the ladies as looked up, and many did so, to return his scrutiny.

The young ladies encountered him in the aisle as they left the church before the service was finished. It had long since been finished for him, and was finished for the young ladies also when they had satisfied their curiosity to see who was there and who with whom.

"We cannot pray for you any longer, Chevalier des Meloises!" said one of the gayest of the group; "the Lady Superior has economically granted us but one hour in the city to make our purchases and attend Vespers. Out of that hour we can only steal forty minutes for a promenade through the city, so good-by, if you prefer the church to our company, or come with us and you shall escort two of us. You see we have only a couple of gentlemen to six ladies."

"I much prefer your company, Mademoiselle de Brouague!" replied he gallantly, forgetting the important meeting of the managers of the Grand Company at the Palace. The business, however, was being cleverly transacted without his help.

Louise de Brouague had no great esteem for the Chevalier des Meloises, but, as she remarked to a companion, he made rather a neat walking-stick, if a young lady could procure no better to promenade with.

"We come out in full force to-day, Chevalier," said she, with a merry glance round the group of lively girls. "A glorious sample of the famous class of the Louises, are we not?"

"Glorious! superb! incomparable!" the Chevalier replied, as he inspected them archly through his glass. "But how did you manage to get out? One Louise at a time is enough to storm the city, but six of them at once—the Lady Superior is full of mercy to-day."

"Oh! is she? Listen: we should not have got permission to come out to-day had we not first laid siege to the soft heart of Mere des Seraphins. She it was who interceded for us, and lo! here we are, ready for any adventure that may befall errant demoiselles in the streets of Quebec!"

Well might the fair Louise de Brouague boast of the famous class of "the Louises," all composed of young ladies of that name, distinguished for beauty, rank, and fashion in the world of New France.

Prominent among them at that period was the beautiful, gay Louise de Brouague. In the full maturity of her charms, as the wife of the Chevalier de Lery she accompanied her husband to England after the cession of Canada, and went to Court to pay homage to their new sovereign, George III., when the young king, struck with her grace and beauty, gallantly exclaimed,—

"If the ladies of Canada are as handsome as you, I have indeed made a conquest!"

To escort young ladies, internes of the Convent, when granted permission to go out into the city, was a favorite pastime, truly a labor of love, of the young gallants of that day,—an occupation, if very idle, at least very agreeable to those participating in these stolen promenades, and which have not, perhaps, been altogether discontinued in Quebec even to the present day.

The pious nuns were of course entirely ignorant of the contrivances of their fair pupils to amuse themselves in the city. At any rate they good-naturedly overlooked things they could not quite prevent. They had human hearts still under their snowy wimples, and perhaps did not wholly lack womanly sympathy with the dear girls in their charge.

"Why are you not at Belmont to-day, Chevalier des Meloises?" boldly asked Louise Roy, a fearless little questioner in a gay summer robe. She was pretty, and sprightly as Titania. Her long chestnut hair was the marvel and boast of the Convent and, what she prized more, the admiration of the city. It covered her like a veil down to her knees when she chose to let it down in a flood of splendor. Her deep gray eyes contained wells of womanly wisdom. Her skin, fair as a lily of Artois, had borrowed from the sun five or six faint freckles, just to prove the purity of her blood and distract the eye with a variety of charms. The Merovingian Princess, the long-haired daughter of kings, as she was fondly styled by the nuns, queened it wherever she went by right divine of youth, wit, and beauty.

"I should not have had the felicity of meeting you, Mademoiselle Roy, had I gone to Belmont," replied the Chevalier, not liking the question at all. "I preferred not to go."

"You are always so polite and complimentary," replied she, a trace of pout visible on her pretty lips. "I do not see how any one could stay away who was at liberty to go to Belmont! And the whole city has gone, I am sure! for I see nobody in the street!" She held an eye-glass coquettishly to her eye. "Nobody at all!" repeated she. Her companions accused her afterwards of glancing equivocally at the Chevalier as she made this remark; and she answered with a merry laugh that might imply either assent or denial.

"Had you heard in the Convent of the festival at Belmont, Mademoiselle Roy?" asked he, twirling his cane rather majestically.

"We have heard of nothing else and talked of nothing else for a whole week!" replied she. "Our mistresses have been in a state of distraction trying to stop our incessant whispering in the school instead of minding our lessons like good girls trying to earn good conduct marks! The feast, the ball, the dresses, the company, beat learning out of our heads and hearts! Only fancy, Chevalier," she went on in her voluble manner; "Louise de Beaujeu here was asked to give the Latin name for Heaven, and she at once translated it Belmont!"

"Tell no school tales, Mademoiselle Roy!" retorted Louise de Beaujeu, her black eyes flashing with merriment. "It was a good translation! But who was it stumbled in the Greek class when asked for the proper name of the anax andron, the king of men in the Iliad?" Louise Roy looked archly and said defiantly, "Go on!" "Would you believe it, Chevalier, she replied 'Pierre Philibert!' Mere Christine fairly gasped, but Louise had to kiss the floor as a penance for pronouncing a gentleman's name with such unction."

"And if I did I paid my penance heartily and loudly, as you may recollect, Louise de Beaujeu, although I confess I would have preferred kissing Pierre Philibert himself if I had had my choice!"

"Always her way! won't give in! never! Louise Roy stands by her translation in spite of all the Greek Lexicons in the Convent!" exclaimed Louise de Brouague.

"And so I do, and will; and Pierre Philibert is the king of men, in New France or Old! Ask Amelie de Repentigny!" added she, in a half whisper to her companion.

"Oh, she will swear to it any day!" was the saucy reply of Louise de Brouague. "But without whispering it, Chevalier des Meloises," continued she, "the classes in the Convent have all gone wild in his favor since they learned he was in love with one of our late companions in school. He is the Prince Camaralzaman of our fairy tales."

"Who is that?" The Chevalier spoke tartly, rather. He was excessively annoyed at all this enthusiasm in behalf of Pierre Philibert.

"Nay, I will tell no more fairy tales out of school, but I assure you, if our wishes had wings the whole class of Louises would fly away to Belmont to-day like a flock of ring-doves."

Louise de Brouague noticed the pique of the Chevalier at the mention of Philibert, but in that spirit of petty torment with which her sex avenges small slights she continued to irritate the vanity of the Chevalier, whom in her heart she despised.

His politeness nearly gave way. He was thoroughly disgusted with all this lavish praise of Philibert. He suddenly recollected that he had an appointment at the Palace which would prevent him, he said, enjoying the full hour of absence granted to the Greek class of the Ursulines.

"Mademoiselle Angelique has of course gone to Belmont, if pressing engagements prevent YOU, Chevalier," said Louise Roy. "How provoking it must be to have business to look after when one wants to enjoy life!" The Chevalier half spun round on his heel under the quizzing of Louise's eye-glass.

"No, Angelique has not gone to Belmont," replied he, quite piqued. "She very properly declined to mingle with the Messieurs and Mesdames Jourdains who consort with the Bourgeois Philibert! She was preparing for a ride, and the city really seems all the gayer by the absence of so many commonplace people as have gone out to Belmont."

Louise de Brouague's eyes gave a few flashes of indignation. "Fie, Chevalier! that was naughtily said of you about the good Bourgeois and his friends," exclaimed she, impetuously. "Why, the Governor, the Lady de Tilly and her niece, the Chevalier La Corne St. Luc, Hortense and Claude de Beauharnais, and I know not how many more of the very elite of society have gone to do honor to Colonel Philibert! And as for the girls in the Convent, who you will allow are the most important and most select portion of the community, there is not one of us but would willingly jump out of the window, and do penance on dry bread and salt fish for a month, just for one hour's pleasure at the ball this evening, would we not, Louises?"

Not a Louise present but assented with an emphasis that brought sympathetic smiles upon the faces of the two young chevaliers who had watched all this pretty play.

The Chevalier des Meloises bowed very low. "I regret so much, ladies, to have to leave you! but affairs of State, you know—affairs of State! The Intendant will not proceed without a full board: I must attend the meeting to-day at the Palace."

"Oh, assuredly, Chevalier," replied Louise Roy. "What would become of the Nation, what would become of the world, nay, what would become of the internes of the Ursulines, if statesmen and warriors and philosophers like you and the Sieurs Drouillon and La Force here (this in a parenthesis, not to scratch the Chevalier too deep), did not take wise counsel for our safety and happiness, and also for the welfare of the nation?"

The Chevalier des Meloises took his departure under this shower of arrows.

The young La Force was as yet only an idle dangler about the city; but in the course of time became a man of wit and energy worthy of his name. He replied gaily,—

"Thanks, Mademoiselle Roy! It is just for sake of the fair internes of the Convent that Drouillon and I have taken up the vocation of statesmen, warriors, philosophers, and friends. We are quite ready to guide your innocent footsteps through the streets of this perilous city, if you are ready to go."

"We had better hasten too!" ejaculated Louise Roy, looking archly through her eye-glass. "I can see Bonhomme Michel peeping round the corner of the Cote de Lery! He is looking after us stray lambs of the flock, Sieur Drouillon!"

Bonhomme Michel was the old watchman and factotum of the monastery. He had a general commission to keep a sharp eye upon the young ladies who were allowed to go out into the city. A pair of horn spectacles usually helped his vision,—sometimes marred it, however, when the knowing gallants slipped a crown into his hand to put in the place of his magnifiers! Bonhomme Michel placed all his propitiation money—he liked a pious word—in his old leathern sack, which contained the redemption of many a gadding promenade through the streets of Quebec. Whether he reported what he saw this time is not recorded in the Vieux Recit, the old annals of the Convent. But as Louise Roy called him her dear old Cupid, and knew so well how to bandage his eyes, it is probable the good nuns were not informed of the pleasant meeting of the class Louises and the gentlemen who escorted them round the city on the present occasion.



CHAPTER XIX. PUT MONEY IN THY PURSE.

The Chevalier des Meloises, quite out of humor with the merry Louises, picked his way with quick, dainty steps down the Rue du Palais. The gay Louises, before returning to the Convent, resolved to make a hasty promenade to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in politeness taught them by the nuns.

In justice be it said, however, the girls were actuated by a nobler feeling than the mere spirit of amusement—a sentiment of loyalty to France, a warm enthusiasm for their country, drew them to the walls: they wanted to see the defenders of Quebec, to show their sympathy and smile approval upon them.

"Would to heaven I were a man," exclaimed Louise de Brouague, "that I might wield a sword, a spade, anything of use, to serve my country! I shame to do nothing but talk, pray, and suffer for it, while every one else is working or fighting."

Poor girl! she did not foresee a day when the women of New France would undergo trials compared with which the sword stroke that kills the strong man is as the touch of mercy,—when the batteries of Wolfe would for sixty-five days shower shot and shell upon Quebec, and the South shore for a hundred miles together be blazing with the fires of devastation. Such things were mercifully withheld from their foresight, and the light-hearted girls went the round of the works as gaily as they would have tripped in a ballroom.

The Chevalier des Meloises, passing through the Porte du Palais, was hailed by two or three young officers of the Regiment of Bearn, who invited him into the Guard House to take a glass of wine before descending the steep hill. The Chevalier stopped willingly, and entered the well-furnished quarters of the officers of the guard, where a cool flask of Burgundy presently restored him to good humor with himself, and consequently with the world.

"What is up to-day at the Palace?" asked Captain Monredin, a vivacious Navarrois. "All the Gros Bonnets of the Grand Company have gone down this afternoon! I suppose you are going too, Des Meloises?"

"Yes! They have sent for me, you see, on affairs of State—what Penisault calls 'business.' Not a drop of wine on the board! Nothing but books and papers, bills and shipments, money paid, money received! Doit et avoir and all the cursed lingo of the Friponne! I damn the Friponne, but bless her money! It pays, Monredin! It pays better than fur-trading at a lonely outpost in the northwest." The Chevalier jingled a handful of coin in his pocket. The sound was a sedative to his disgust at the idea of trade, and quite reconciled him to the Friponne.

"You are a lucky dog nevertheless, to be able to make it jingle!" said Monredin, "not one of us Bearnois can play an accompaniment to your air of money in both pockets. Here is our famous Regiment of Bearn, second to none in the King's service, a whole year in arrears without pay! Gad! I wish I could go into 'business,' as you call it, and woo that jolly dame, La Friponne!

"For six months we have lived on trust. Those leeches of Jews, who call themselves Christians, down in the Sault au Matelot, won't cash the best orders in the regiment for less than forty per cent. discount!"

"That is true!" broke in another officer, whose rather rubicund face told of credit somewhere, and the product of credit,—good wine and good dinners generally. "That is true, Monredin! The old curmudgeon of a broker at the corner of the Cul de Sac had the impudence to ask me fifty per cent. discount upon my drafts on Bourdeaux! I agree with Des Meloises there: business may be a good thing for those who handle it, but devil touch their dirty fingers for me!"

"Don't condemn all of them, Emeric," said Captain Poulariez, a quiet, resolute-looking officer. "There is one merchant in the city who carries the principles of a gentleman into the usages of commerce. The Bourgeois Philibert gives cent. per cent. for good orders of the King's officers, just to show his sympathy with the army and his love for France."

"Well, I wish he were paymaster of the forces, that is all, and then I could go to him if I wanted to," replied Monredin.

"Why do you not go to him?" asked Poulariez.

"Why, for the same reason, I suppose, so many others of us do not," replied Monredin. "Colonel Dalquier endorses my orders, and he hates the Bourgeois cordially, as a hot friend of the Intendant ought to do. So you see I have to submit to be plucked of my best pen-feathers by that old fesse-mathieu Penisault at the Friponne!"

"How many of yours have gone out to the great spread at Belmont?" asked Des Meloises, quite weary of commercial topics.

"Par Dieu!" replied Monredin, "except the colonel and adjutant, who stayed away on principle, I think every officer in the regiment, present company excepted—who being on duty could not go, much to their chagrin. Such a glorious crush of handsome girls has not been seen, they say, since our regiment came to Quebec."

"And not likely to have been seen before your distinguished arrival—eh, Monredin?" ejaculated Des Meloises, holding his glass to be refilled. "That is delicious Burgundy," added he, "I did not think any one beside the Intendant had wine like that."

"That is some of La Martiniere's cargo," replied Poulariex. "It was kind of him, was it not, to remember us poor Bearnois here on the wrong side of the Atlantic?"

"And how earnestly we were praying for that same Burgundy," ejaculated Monredin, "when it came, as if dropped upon us by Providence! Health and wealth to Captain La Martiniere and the good frigate Fleur-de-Lis!"

Another round followed.

"They talk about those Jansenist convulsionnaires at the tomb of Master Paris, which are setting all France by the ears," exclaimed Monredin, "but I say there is nothing so contagious as the drinking of a glass of wine like that."

"And the glass gives us convulsions too, Monredin, if we try it too often, and no miracle about it either," remarked Poulariez.

Monredin looked up, red and puffy, as if needing a bridle to check his fast gait.

"But they say we are to have peace soon. Is that true, Des Meloises?" asked Poulariez. "You ought to know what is under the cards before they are played."

"No, I don't know; and I hope the report is not true. Who wants peace yet? It would ruin the King's friends in the Colony." Des Meloises looked as statesmanlike as he could when delivering this dictum.

"Ruin the King's friends! Who are they, Des Meloises?" asked Poulariez, with a look of well-assumed surprise.

"Why, the associates of the Grand Company, to be sure! What other friends has the King got in New France?"

"Really! I thought he had the Regiment of Bearn for a number of them—to say nothing of the honest people of the Colony," replied Poulariez, impatiently.

"The Honnetes Gens, you mean!" exclaimed Des Meloises. "Well, Poulariez, all I have to say is that if this Colony is to be kept up for the sake of a lot of shopkeepers, wood-choppers, cobblers, and farmers, the sooner the King hands it over to the devil or the English the better!"

Poulariex looked indignant enough; but from the others a loud laugh followed this sally.

The Chevalier des Meloises pulled out his watch. "I must be gone to the Palace," said he. "I dare say Cadet, Varin, and Penisault will have balanced the ledgers by this time, and the Intendant, who is the devil for business on such occasions, will have settled the dividends for the quarter—the only part of the business I care about."

"But don't you help them with the work a little?" asked Poulariez.

"Not I; I leave business to them that have a vocation for it. Besides, I think Cadet, Vargin, and Penisault like to keep the inner ring of the company to themselves." He turned to Emeric: "I hope there will be a good dividend to-night, Emeric," said he. "I owe you some revenge at piquet, do I not?"

"You capoted me last night at the Taverne de Menut, and I had three aces and three kings."

"But I had a quatorze, and took the fishes," replied Des Meloises.

"Well, Chevalier, I shall win them back to-night. I hope the dividend will be good: in that way I too may share in the 'business' of the Grand Company."

"Good-by, Chevalier; remember me to St. Blague!" (This was a familiar sobriquet of Bigot.) "Tis the best name going. If I had an heir for the old chateau on the Adour, I would christen him Bigot for luck."

The Chevalier des Meloises left the officers and proceeded down the steep road that led to the Palace. The gardens were quiet to-day—a few loungers might be seen in the magnificent alleys, pleached walks, and terraces; beyond these gardens, however, stretched the King's wharves and the magazines of the Friponne. These fairly swarmed with men loading and unloading ships and bateaux, and piling and unpiling goods.

The Chevalier glanced with disdain at the magazines, and flourishing his cane, mounted leisurely the broad steps of the Palace, and was at once admitted to the council-room.

"Better late than never, Chevalier des Meloises!" exclaimed Bigot, carelessly glancing at him as he took a seat at the board, where sat Cadet, Varin, Penisault, and the leading spirits of the Grand Company. "You are in double luck to-day. The business is over, and Dame Friponne has laid a golden egg worth a Jew's tooth for each partner of the Company."

The Chevalier did not notice, or did not care for, the slight touch of sarcasm in the Intendant's tone. "Thanks, Bigot!" drawled he. "My eggs shall be hatched to-night down at Menut's. I expect to have little more left than the shell of it to-morrow."

"Well, never mind! We have considered all that, Chevalier. What one loses another gets. It is all in the family. Look here," continued he, laying his finger upon a page of the ledger that lay open before him, "Mademoiselle Angelique des Meloises is now a shareholder in the Grand Company. The list of high, fair, and noble ladies of the Court who are members of the Company will be honored by the addition of the name of your charming sister."

The Chevalier's eyes sparkled with delight as he read Angelique's name on the book. A handsome sum of five digits stood to her credit. He bowed his thanks with many warm expressions of his sense of the honor done his sister by "placing her name on the roll of the ladies of the Court who honor the Company by accepting a share of its dividends."

"I hope Mademoiselle des Meloises will not refuse this small mark of our respect," observed Bigot, feeling well assured she would not deem it a small one.

"Little fear of that!" muttered Cadet, whose bad opinion of the sex was incorrigible. "The game fowls of Versailles scratch jewels out of every dung-hill, and Angelique des Meloises has longer claws than any of them!"

Cadet's ill-natured remark was either unheard or unheeded; besides, he was privileged to say anything. Des Meloises bowed with an air of perfect complaisance to the Intendant as he answered,—"I guarantee the perfect satisfaction of Angelique with this marked compliment of the Grand Company. She will, I am sure, appreciate the kindness of the Intendant as it deserves."

Cadet and Varin exchanged smiles, not unnoticed by Bigot, who smiled too. "Yes, Chevalier," said he, "the Company gives this token of its admiration for the fairest lady in New France. We have bestowed premiums upon fine flax and fat cattle: why not upon beauty, grace, and wit embodied in handsome women?"

"Angelique will be highly flattered, Chevalier," replied he, "at the distinction. She must thank you herself, as I am sure she will."

"I am happy to try to deserve her thanks," replied Bigot; and, not caring to talk further on the subject,—"what news in the city this afternoon, Chevalier?" asked he; "how does that affair at Belmont go off?"

"Don't know. Half the city has gone, I think. At the Church door, however, the talk among the merchants is that peace is going to be made soon. Is it so very threatening, Bigot?"

"If the King wills it, it is." Bigot spoke carelessly.

"But your own opinion, Chevalier Bigot; what think you of it?"

"Amen! amen! Quod fiat fiatur! Seigny John, the fool of Paris, could enlighten you as well as I could as to what the women at Versailles may decide to do," replied Bigot in a tone of impatience.

"I fear peace will be made. What will you do in that case, Bigot?" asked Des Meloises, not noticing Bigot's aversion to the topic.

"If the King makes it, invitus amabo! as the man said who married the shrew." Bigot laughed mockingly. "We must make the best of it, Des Meloises! and let me tell you privately, I mean to make a good thing of it for ourselves whichever way it turns."

"But what will become of the Company should the war expenditure stop?" The Chevalier was thinking of his dividend of five figures.

"Oh! you should have been here sooner, Des Meloises: you would have heard our grand settlement of the question in every contingency of peace or war."

"Be sure of one thing," continued Bigot, "the Grand Company will not, like the eels of Melun, cry out before they are skinned. What says the proverb, 'Mieux vaut engin que force' (craft beats strength)? The Grand Company must prosper as the first condition of life in New France. Perhaps a year or two of repose may not be amiss, to revictual and reinforce the Colony; and by that time we shall be ready to pick the lock of Bellona's temple again and cry Vive la guerre! Vive la Grande Compagnie! more merrily than ever!"

Bigot's far-reaching intellect forecast the course of events, which remained so much subject to his own direction after the peace of Aix la Chapelle—a peace which in America was never a peace at all, but only an armed and troubled truce between the clashing interests and rival ambitions of the French and English in the New World.

The meeting of the Board of Managers of the Grand Company broke up, and—a circumstance that rarely happened—without the customary debauch. Bigot, preoccupied with his own projects, which reached far beyond the mere interests of the Company, retired to his couch. Cadet, Varin, and Penisault, forming an interior circle of the Friponne, had certain matters to shape for the Company's eye. The rings of corruption in the Grand Company descended, narrower and more black and precipitous, down to the bottom where Bigot sat, the Demiurgos of all.

The Chevalier des Meloises was rather proud of his sister's beauty and cleverness, and in truth a little afraid of her. They lived together harmoniously enough, so long as each allowed the other his or her own way. Both took it, and followed their own pleasures, and were not usually disagreeable to one another, except when Angelique commented on what she called his penuriousness, and he upon her extravagance, in the financial administration of the family of the Des Meloises.

The Chevalier was highly delighted to-day to be able to inform Angelique of her good fortune in becoming a partner of the Friponne and that too by grace of his Excellency the Intendant. The information filled Angelique with delight, not only because it made her independent of her brother's mismanagement of money, but it opened a door to her wildest hopes. In that gift her ambition found a potent ally to enable her to resist the appeal to her heart which she knew would be made to-night by Le Gardeur de Repentigny.

The Chevalier des Meloises had no idea of his sister's own aims. He had long nourished a foolish fancy that, if he had not obtained the hand of the wealthy and beautiful heiress of Repentigny, it was because he had not proposed. Something to-day had suggested the thought that unless he did propose soon his chances would be nil, and another might secure the prize which he had in his vain fancy set down as his own.

He hinted to Angelique to-day that he had almost resolved to marry, and that his projected alliance with the noble and wealthy house of Tilly could be easily accomplished if Angelique would only do her share, as a sister ought, in securing her brother's fortune and happiness.

"How?" asked she, looking up savagely, for she knew well at what her brother was driving.

"By your accepting Le Gardeur without more delay! All the city knows he is mad in love, and would marry you any day you choose if you wore only the hair on your head. He would ask no better fortune!"

"It is useless to advise me, Renaud!" said she, "and whether I take Le Gardeur or no it would not help your chance with Amelie! I am sorry for it, for Amelie is a prize, Renaud! but not for you at any price. Let me tell you, that desirable young lady will become the bride of Pierre Philibert, and the bride of no other man living."

"You give one cold encouragement, sister! But I am sure, if you would only marry Le Gardeur, you could easily, with your tact and cleverness, induce Amelie to let me share the Tilly fortune. There are chests full of gold in the old Manor House, and a crow could hardly fly in a day over their broad lands!"

"Perfectly useless, brother! Amelie is not like most girls. She would refuse the hand of a king for the sake of the man she loves, and she loves Pierre Philibert to his finger-ends. She has married him in her heart a thousand times. I hate paragons of women, and would scorn to be one, but I tell you, brother, Amelie is a paragon of a girl, without knowing it!"

"Hum, I never tried my hand on a paragon: I should like to do so," replied he, with a smile of decided confidence in his powers. "I fancy they are just like other women when you can catch them with their armor off."

"Yes, but women like Amelie never lay off their armor! They seem born in it, like Minerva. But your vanity will not let you believe me, Renaud! So go try her, and tell me your luck! She won't scratch you, nor scold. Amelie is a lady, and will talk to you like a queen. But she will give you a polite reply to your proposal that will improve your opinions of our sex."

"You are mocking me, Angelique, as you always do! One never knows when you are in jest or when in earnest. Even when you get angry, it is often unreal and for a purpose! I want you to be serious for once. The fortune of the Tillys and De Repentignys is the best in New France, and we can make it ours if you will help me."

"I am serious enough in wishing you those chests full of gold, and those broad lands that a crow cannot fly over in a day; but I must forego my share of them, and so must you yours, brother!" Angelique leaned back in her chair, desiring to stop further discussion of a topic she did not like to hear.

"Why must you forego your share of the De Repentigny fortune, Angelique? You could call it your own any day you chose by giving your little finger to Le Gardeur! you do really puzzle me."

The Chevalier did look perplexed at his inscrutable sister, who only smiled over the table at him, as she nonchalantly cracked nuts and sipped her wine by drops.

"Of course I puzzle you, Renaud!" said she at last. "I am a puzzle to myself sometimes. But you see there are so many men in the world,—poor ones are so plenty, rich ones so scarce, and sensible ones hardly to be found at all,—that a woman may be excused for selling herself to the highest bidder. Love is a commodity only spoken of in romances or in the patois of milkmaids now-a-days!"

"Zounds, Angelique! you would try the patience of all the saints in the calendar! I shall pity the fellow you take in! Here is the fairest fortune in the Colony about to fall into the hands of Pierre Philibert—whom Satan confound for his assurance! A fortune which I always regarded as my own!"

"It shows the folly and vanity of your sex! You never spoke a word to Amelie de Repentigny in the way of wooing in your life! Girls like her don't drop into men's arms just for the asking."

"Pshaw! as if she would refuse me if you only acted a sister's part! But you are impenetrable as a rock, and the whole of your fickle sex could not match your vanity and caprice, Angelique."

She rose quickly with a provoked air.

"You are getting so complimentary to my poor sex, Renaud," said she, "that I must really leave you to yourself, and I could scarcely leave you in worse company."

"You are so bitter and sarcastic upon one!" replied he, tartly; "my only desire was to secure a good fortune for you, and another for myself. I don't see, for my part, what women are made for, except to mar everything a man wants to do for himself and for them!"

"Certainly everything should be done for us, brother; but I have no defence to make for my sex, none! I dare say we women deserve all that men think of us, but then it is impolite to tell us so to our faces. Now, as I advised you, Renaud, I would counsel you to study gardening, and you may one day arrive at as great distinction as the Marquis de Vandriere—you may cultivate chou chou if you cannot raise a bride like Amelie de Repentigny."

Angelique knew her brother's genius was not penetrating, or she would scarcely have ventured this broad allusion to the brother of La Pompadour, who, by virtue of his relationship to the Court favorite, had recently been created Director of the Royal Gardens. What fancy was working in the brain of Angelique when she alluded to him may be only surmised.

The Chevalier was indignant, however, at an implied comparison between himself and the plebeian Marquis de Vandriere. He replied, with some heat,—

"The Marquis de Vandriere! How dare you mention him and me together! There's not an officer's mess in the army that receives the son of the fishmonger! Why do you mention him, Angelique? You are a perfect riddle!"

"I only thought something might happen, brother, if I should ever go to Paris! I was acting a charade in my fancy, and that was the solution of it!"

"What was? You would drive the whole Sorbonne mad with your charades and fancies! But I must leave you."

"Good-by, brother,—if you will go. Think of it!—if you want to rise in the world you may yet become a royal gardener like the Marquis de Vandriere!" Her silvery laugh rang out good-humoredly as he descended the stairs and passed out of the house.

She sat down in her fauteuil. "Pity Renaud is such a fool!" said she; "yet I am not sure but he is wiser in his folly than I with all my tact and cleverness, which I suspect are going to make a greater fool of me than ever he is!"

She leaned back in her chair in a deep thinking mood. "It is growing dark," murmured she. "Le Gardeur will assuredly be here soon, in spite of all the attractions of Belmont. How to deal with him when he comes is more than I know: he will renew his suit, I am sure."

For a moment the heart of Angelique softened in her bosom. "Accept him I must not!" said she; "affront him I will not! cease to love him is out of my power as much as is my ability to love the Intendant, whom I cordially detest, and shall marry all the same!" She pressed her hands over her eyes, and sat silent for a few minutes. "But I am not sure of it! That woman remains still at Beaumanoir! Will my scheming to remove her be all in vain or no?" Angelique recollected with a shudder a thought that had leaped in her bosom, like a young Satan, engendered of evil desires. "I dare hardly look in the honest eyes of Le Gardeur after nursing such a monstrous fancy as that," said she; "but my fate is fixed all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life, but he must leave me to my own devices." To what devices she left him was a thought that sprang not up in her purely selfish nature.

In her perplexity Angelique tied knot upon knot hard as pebbles in her handkerchief. Those knots of her destiny, as she regarded them, she left untied, and they remain untied to this day—a memento of her character and of those knots in her life which posterity has puzzled itself over to no purpose to explain.



CHAPTER XX. BELMONT.

A short drive from the gate of St. John stood the old mansion of Belmont, the country-seat of the Bourgeois Philibert—a stately park, the remains of the primeval forest of oak, maple, and pine; trees of gigantic growth and ample shade surrounded the high-roofed, many-gabled house that stood on the heights of St. Foye overlooking the broad valley of the St. Charles. The bright river wound like a silver serpent through the flat meadows in the bottom of the valley, while the opposite slopes of alternate field and forest stretched away to the distant range of the Laurentian hills, whose pale blue summits mingled with the blue sky at midday or, wrapped in mist at morn and eve, were hardly distinguishable from the clouds behind them.

The gardens and lawns of Belmont were stirring with gay company to-day in honor of the fete of Pierre Philibert upon his return home from the campaign in Acadia. Troops of ladies in costumes and toilettes of the latest Parisian fashion gladdened the eye with pictures of grace and beauty which Paris itself could not have surpassed. Gentlemen in full dress, in an age when dress was an essential part of a gentleman's distinction, accompanied the ladies with the gallantry, vivacity, and politeness belonging to France, and to France alone.

Communication with the mother country was precarious and uncertain by reason of the war and the blockade of the Gulf by the English cruisers. Hence the good fortune and daring of the gallant Captain Martiniere in running his frigate, the Fleur-de-Lis, through the fleet of the enemy, enabling him among other things to replenish the wardrobes of the ladies of Quebec with latest Parisian fashions, made him immensely popular on this gala day. The kindness and affability of the ladies extended without diminution of graciousness to the little midshipmen even, whom the Captain conditioned to take with him wherever he and his officers were invited. Captain Martiniere was happy to see the lads enjoy a few cakes on shore after the hard biscuit they had so long nibbled on shipboard. As for himself, there was no end to the gracious smiles and thanks he received from the fair ladies at Belmont.

At the great door of the Manor House, welcoming his guests as they arrived, stood the Bourgeois Philibert, dressed as a gentleman of the period, in attire rich but not ostentatious. His suit of dark velvet harmonized well with his noble manner and bearing. But no one for a moment could overlook the man in contemplating his dress. The keen, discriminating eye of woman, overlooking neither dress nor man, found both worthy of warmest commendation, and many remarks passed between the ladies on that day that a handsomer man and more ripe and perfect gentleman than the Bourgeois Philibert had never been seen in New France.

His grizzled hair grew thickly all over his head, the sign of a tenacious constitution. It was powdered and tied behind with a broad ribbon, for he hated perukes. His strong, shapely figure was handsomely conspicuous as he stood, chapeau in hand, greeting his guests as they approached. His eyes beamed with pleasure and hospitality, and his usually grave, thoughtful lips were wreathed in smiles, the sweeter because not habitually seen upon them.

The Bourgeois had this in common with all complete and earnest characters, that the people believed in him because they saw that he believed in himself. His friends loved and trusted him to the uttermost, his enemies hated and feared him in equal measure; but no one, great or small, could ignore him and not feel his presence as a solid piece of manhood.

It is not intellect, nor activity, nor wealth, that obtains most power over men; but force of character, self-control, a quiet, compressed will and patient resolve; these qualities make one man the natural ruler over others by a title they never dispute.

The party of the Honnetes Gens, the "honest folks" as they were derisively called by their opponents, regarded the Bourgeois Philibert as their natural leader. His force of character made men willingly stand in his shadow. His clear intellect, never at fault, had extended his power and influence by means of his vast mercantile operations over half the continent. His position as the foremost merchant of New France brought him in the front of the people's battle with the Grand Company, and in opposition to the financial policy of the Intendant and the mercantile assumption of the Friponne.

But the personal hostility between the Intendant and the Bourgeois had its root and origin in France, before either of them crossed the ocean to the hither shore of the Atlantic. The Bourgeois had been made very sensible of a fact vitally affecting him, that the decrees of the Intendant, ostensibly for the regulation of trade in New France, had been sharply pointed against himself. "They draw blood!" Bigot had boasted to his familiars as he rubbed his hands together with intense satisfaction one day, when he learned that Philibert's large trading-post in Mackinaw had been closed in consequence of the Indians having been commanded by royal authority, exercised by the Intendant, to trade only at the comptoirs of the Grand Company. "They draw blood!" repeated he, "and will draw the life yet out of the Golden Dog." It was plain the ancient grudge of the courtly parasite had not lost a tooth during all those years.

The Bourgeois was not a man to talk of his private griefs, or seek sympathy, or even ask counsel or help. He knew the world was engrossed with its own cares. The world cares not to look under the surface of things for sake of others, but only for its own sake, its own interests, its own pleasures.

To-day, however, cares, griefs, and resentments were cast aside, and the Bourgeois was all joy at the return of his only son, and proud of Pierre's achievements, and still more of the honors spontaneously paid him. He stood at the door, welcoming arrival after arrival, the happiest man of all the joyous company who honored Belmont that day.

A carriage with outriders brought the Count de la Galissoniere and his friend Herr Kalm and Dr. Gauthier, the last a rich old bachelor, handsome and generous, the physician and savant par excellence of Quebec. After a most cordial reception by the Bourgeois the Governor walked among the guests, who had crowded up to greet him with the respect due to the King's representative, as well as to show their personal regard; for the Count's popularity was unbounded in the Colony except among the partizans of the Grand Company.

Herr Kalm was presently enticed away by a bevy of young ladies, Hortense de Beauharnais leading them, to get the learned professor's opinion on some rare specimens of botany growing in the park. Nothing loath—for he was good-natured as he was clever, and a great enthusiast withal in the study of plants—he allowed the merry, talkative girls to lead him where they would. He delighted them in turn by his agreeable, instructive conversation, which was rendered still more piquant by the odd medley of French, Latin, and Swedish in which it was expressed.

An influx of fresh arrivals next poured into the park—the Chevalier de la Corne, with his pretty daughter, Agathe La Corne St. Luc; the Lady de Tilly and Amelie de Repentigny, with the brothers de Villiers. The brothers had overtaken the Chevalier La Corne upon the road, but the custom of the highway in New France forbade any one passing another without politely asking permission to do so.

"Yes, Coulon," replied the Chevalier; "ride on!" He winked pleasantly at his daughter as he said this. "There is, I suppose, nothing left for an old fellow who dates from the sixteen hundreds but to take the side of the road and let you pass. I should have liked, however, to stir up the fire in my gallant little Norman ponies against your big New England horses. Where did you get them? Can they run?"

"We got them in the sack of Saratoga," replied Coulon, "and they ran well that day, but we overtook them. Would Mademoiselle La Corne care if we try them now?"

Scarcely a girl in Quebec would have declined the excitement of a race on the highroad of St. Foye, and Agathe would fain have driven herself in the race, but being in full dress to-day, she thought of her wardrobe and the company. She checked the ardor of her father, and entered the park demurely, as one of the gravest of the guests.

"Happy youths! Noble lads, Agathe!" exclaimed the Chevalier, admiringly, as the brothers rode rapidly past them. "New France will be proud of them some day!"

The rest of the company now began to arrive in quick succession. The lawn was crowded with guests. "Ten thousand thanks for coming!" exclaimed Pierre Philibert, as he assisted Amelie de Repentigny and the Lady de Tilly to alight from their carriage.

"We could not choose but come to-day, Pierre," replied Amelie, feeling without displeasure the momentary lingering of his hand as it touched hers. "Nothing short of an earthquake would have kept aunt at home," added she, darting a merry glance of sympathy with her aunt's supposed feelings.

"And you, Amelie?" Pierre looked into those dark eyes which shyly turned aside from his gaze.

"I was an obedient niece, and accompanied her. It is so easy to persuade people to go where they wish to go!" She withdrew her hand gently, and took his arm as he conducted the ladies into the house. She felt a flush on her cheek, but it did not prevent her saying in her frank, kindly way,—"I was glad to come to-day, Pierre, to witness this gathering of the best and noblest in the land to honor your fete. Aunt de Tilly has always predicted greatness for you."

"And you, Amelie, doubted, knowing me a shade better than your aunt?"

"No, I believed her; so true a prophet as aunt surely deserved one firm believer!"

Pierre felt the electric thrill run through him which a man feels at the moment he discovers a woman believes in him. "Your presence here to-day, Amelie! you cannot think how sweet it is," said he.

Her hand trembled upon his arm. She thought nothing could be sweeter than such words from Pierre Philibert. With a charming indirectness, however, which did not escape him, she replied, "Le Gardeur is very proud of you to-day, Pierre."

He laid his fingers upon her hand. It was a delicate little hand, but with the strength of an angel's it had moulded his destiny and led him to the honorable position he had attained. He was profoundly conscious at this moment of what he owed to this girl's silent influence. He contented himself, however, with saying, "I will so strive that one day Amelie de Repentigny shall not shame to say she too is proud of me."

She did not reply for a moment. A tremor agitated her low, sweet voice. "I am proud of you now, Pierre,—more proud than words can tell to see you so honored, and proudest to think you deserve it all."

It touched him almost to tears. "Thanks, Amelie; when you are proud of me I shall begin to feel pride of myself. Your opinion is the one thing in life I have most cared for,—your approbation is my best reward."

Her eyes were eloquent with unspoken words, but she thought, "If that were all!" Pierre Philibert had long received the silent reward of her good opinion and approbation.

The Bourgeois at this moment came up to salute Amelie and the Lady de Tilly.

"The Bourgeois Philibert has the most perfect manner of any gentleman in New France," was the remark of the Lady de Tilly to Amelie, as he left them again to receive other guests. "They say he can be rough and imperious sometimes to those he dislikes, but to his friends and strangers, and especially to ladies, no breath of spring can be more gentle and balmy." Amelie assented with a mental reservation in the depths of her dark eyes, and in the dimple that flashed upon her cheek as she suppressed the utterance of a pleasant fancy in reply to her aunt.

Pierre conducted the ladies to the great drawing-room, which was already filled with company, who overwhelmed Amelie and her aunt with the vivacity of their greeting.

In a fine shady grove at a short distance from the house, a row of tables was set for the entertainment of several hundreds of the hardy dependents of the Bourgeois; for while feasting the rich the Bourgeois would not forget his poorer friends, and perhaps his most exquisite satisfaction was in the unrestrained enjoyment of his hospitality by the crowd of happy, hungry fellows and their families, who, under the direction of his chief factor, filled the tables from end to end, and made the park resound with songs and merriment—fellows of infinite gaiety, with appetites of Gargantuas and a capacity for good liquors that reminded one of the tubs of the Danaides. The tables groaned beneath mountains of good things, and in the centre of each, like Mont Blanc rising from the lower Alps, stood a magnificent Easter pie, the confection of which was a masterpiece of the skill of Maitre Guillot Gobet, the head cook of the Bourgeois, who was rather put out, however, when Dame Rochelle decided to bestow all the Easter pies upon the hungry voyageurs, woodmen, and workmen, and banished them from the menu of the more patrician tables set for the guests of the mansion.

"Yet, after all," exclaimed Maitre Guillot, as he thrust his head out of the kitchen door to listen to the song the gay fellows were singing with all their lungs in honor of his Easter pie; "after all, the fine gentlemen and ladies would not have paid my noble pies such honor as that! and what is more the pies would not have been eaten up to the last crumb!" Maitre Guillot's face beamed like a harvest moon, as he chimed in with the well-known ditty in praise of the great pie of Rouen: