hardly obtain an order instantaneously, and I have a fair start.'

So M. de Bellaise lent him some clothes, and he appeared at supper as
a handsome lively-looking youth, hardly come to his full height, for
he was only seventeen, with a haughty bearing, and large, almost
fierce dark eyes, under eyebrows that nearly met.

At supper he told us his story. He was, as you know the only scion
of the old house of Aubepine, his father having been killed in a
duel, and his mother dying at his birth. His grandparents bred him
up with the most assiduous care, but (as my husband told me) it was
the care of pride rather than of love. When still a mere boy, they
married him to poor little Cecile de Bellaise, younger still, and
fresh from her convent, promising, on his vehement entreaty, that so
soon as the succession should be secured by the birth of a son, he
should join the army.

Imagine then his indignation and despair when a little daughter--a
miserable little girl, as he said--made her appearance, to prolong
his captivity. For some centuries, he said--weeks he meant--he
endured, but then came the tidings of Rocroy to drive him wild with
impatience, and the report that there were negotiations for peace
completed the work. He made his wife give him her jewels and assist
his escape from the window of her chamber; bribed a courier--who was
being sent from M. de Nidemerle to my husband--to give him his livery
and passport and dispatches, and to keep out of sight; and thus
passed successfully through Paris, and had, through a course of
adventures which he narrated with great spirit, safely reached us.
Even if the rogue of a courier, as he justly called his accomplice,
had betrayed him, there was no fear but that he would have time to