28 A STUDY A LA LOUIS QUATORZE. flowers, playing with the clematis tendrils, the " paste " diamond flashing in the last rays of the setting sun, etood our " dame d'industrie— or worse!" She was but a few feet farther on; she must have heard Lady Maréchale's and Mrs. Protocol's duo on her demerits; she had heard it, without doubt, for she was laughing gayly and joyously, laughter that sparkled all over her riante face and flashed in her bright falcon eyes. Laughing still, she signed me to her. I need not say that the sign was obeyed. "Chivalrous knight, I thank you! You are a Bayard of chivalry; you defend the absent! What a miracle, mon Dieu! Tell your friends from me not to speak so loudly when their windows are open; and, for yourself, rest as- sured your words of this evening will not be forgotten." "I am happy, indeed, if I have been fortu- nate enough to obtain a chance remembrance, but do not give me too much praise for so sim- ple a service; the clumsiest Cimon would be stirred into chivalry under such inspiration as 1 had------" The beautiful hazel eyes flashed smilingly on me under their lashes. (Those lashes tinted! Heaven forgive the malice of women!) She broke off a sprig of the clematis, with its long slender leaves, and fragrant starry flowers, and gave it to me. "Tenez, mon ami, if ever you see me again, show me that faded flower, and I shall remem- ber this evening at Vicq d'Azyr. Nay, do not flatter yourself—do not thrust it in your brea-t; it is no gage d'arnour! it is only a reward for loyal service, and a souvenir to refresh my own memory, which is treacherous sometimes, though not in gratitude to those who serve me. Adieu, mon Bayard—et bonsoir !" But I retained the hand that had given me my clematis-spray. "Meet you again! But will not that be to- morrow ? If I am not to see you, as your words threaten, till the clematis be faded and myself forgotten, let me at least, I beseech you, know where, who, by what name------" She drew her hand away with something of a proud, surprised gesture; then she laughed again that sweet, ringing, mocking laugh: " No, no, Bayard, it is too much to ask! Leave the future to hazard ; it is always the best philosophy. Au revoir! Adieu—perhaps for a day, perhaps for a century!" And the bewitching mystery floated away from me and through the open window of her room. You will imagine that my "intuition " did not lead me to the conclusion to which Lady Maréchale's led her, or assuredly should I have followed the donor of the clematis, despite her prohibition. Even with my " intuition" point riage, with handsome roans and servants in impe- rial-blue liveries. Who the deuce could she be ?" "Well, Constance," said I, as I bade Lady Maréchale good morning, " your bête noire won't ' press herself into your acquaintance,' as you were dreading last night, and won't excite Maréchale and me to any more high treason. Won't you chant a Te Deum? She left this morning." " So I perceived," answered Lady Maréchale, frigidly ; by which I suppose she had not been above the weakness of looking through her persiennes. " What a pity you and Agneta agitated your- selves with such unnecessary alarm! It must have cost you a great deal of eau-de-Cologne and sal-volatile, I am afraid, last night. Do you thifik she contaminated the air of the salle- à-manger, because I will order Mills to throw some disinfectant about before you go down?" " I have no inclination to jest upon a person of that stamp," rejoined Lady Maréchale, with immense dignity, settling her turquoise wrist- band-studs. "'That stamp of persons!' What! Do you think she is an adventuress, an intrigante, ' or worse ' still, then? I hoped her dashing equi- page might have done something towards cleansing her character. Wealth is a universal purifier generally." "Flippant impertinence!" murmured Lady Maréchale, disgustedly, to Mrs. Protocol, as she swept onwards down the staircase, not deigning me a glance, much less a response, stiffening herself with a little extra starch of Lucretian virtue and British-matronly dignity, which did not grow limp again throughout breakfast, while she found fault with the cho- colate, considered the petits pains execrable, condemned the sardines as uneatable, petted Spes, kept Maréchale and me at Coventry, and sighed over their enforced incarceration, by Dr. Berkeley's orders, in Vicq d'Azyr, that kept them in this stupid place away from Lemon- genseidlitz. Their anticipations from Lemongenseidlitz were charmingly golden and rose-tinted. They looked forward to consolidating their friend- ship with the dear Duchess in its balmy air, to improving a passing acquaintance into an inti- mate one with that charming person, the Ba- roness Liebenfrauenmilch, Mistress ofthe robes of Princess Hélène, and to being very intimate at the Court, while the Pullingers (their bosom friends and very dear rivals) would be simply presented, and remain in chagrin, uninvited to the state balls and palace festivities. Andwhat more delightful than that last clause? for what sauce invented, from Carême to Soyer, flavors our own plats so deliciously, I should like to ing where it did I am not sure what I might know, as thinking that our beloved next-door neighbor is doomed to a very dry cutlet? As Pérette, in a humbler fashion, built vis- ions from the pot of milk, so mesdames mes sœurs, from the glittering court and capital of Lemongenseidlitz, erected brilliant châteaux en Espagne of all their sayings and doings in that fashionable little city whither they were bound, and into which they had so many invaluable passports. They were impatient to be journey- ing from our humble, solitary valley, and after a month of Vicq d'Azyr, they departed for their golden land, and I went with them, as I had slain izzards almost ad nauseam, and Dunbar's expiration of leave had taken him back to Dub lin. It was five o'clock when we reached its Reid- enscher Hof, nine when we had finished din- ner. It was stupid work yawning over coffee and Oalignani. What was to be done? Maré- chale proposed the Opera, and for the first time in his life was unopposed by his wife. Con- stance was in a suave, benignant mood ; she was thinking of her Graf von Rosenlau, of the Pul- lingers, and of the sweet, adroit manner in winch she would—when she had captivated him and could proffer such hints—awaken his Serene Highness to a sense of his moral guilt in The people of the house did not "know, or said I not bringing to instant capital punishment they did not; they only knew she had servants ; every agent in those Satanus-f armed banks that in attendance who came with her, who revealed ; throve throughout his duchy. Lady Maréchale nothing, and paid any price for ihe best of j and Mrs. Protocol assented, and to the little everything. Are impertinent questions ever ; miniature^ gayly-decorated Opera asked where money is plentiful? I was dressing the next morning something have done if, in her salon, I had not caught sight of a valet and a lady's maid in waiting with her coffee, and they are not such specta- tors as one generally selects. The servants closed her windows and drew down their Venetian blinds, and I returned to my coffee. Whether the two ladies within had overheard her conversation as she had heard theirs, I can not say, but they looked trebly re- frigerated, had congealed themselves into the chilliest human ice that is imaginable, and com- ported themselves towards me fully as disdain- full as though I had brought a dozen ballet girls in to dinner with them, or introduced them to my choicest acquaintance from the Château des Fleurs. "A man's taste is so pitiably low!" remarked Lady Maréchale, in her favoriie stage aside to Mrs. Protocol; to which that other lady re- sponded, " Disgracefully so !" Who was my lovely unknown with the bright falcon eyes and the charming laugh with her strange freedom that, yet was not, somehow, free, and her strange fa-cination? I bade my man ask Chanderlos her name—cou- riers know everything generally—but neither Mills nor Chanderlos gave me any information hands were tremulous; if-tney had beheld a spiritual visitant, no consternation more pro- found, more intense, could have seized both with its iron hand. My sisters too ! the chil- liest, the calmest, the most impenetrable, the most unassailable of mortals! "And we called her, in her hearing, not a proper person?" gasped Lady Maréchale. "We thought her a lorette! an intrigante! a dame d'industrie !" echoed Mrs. Protocol. " Who wore paste jewels!" "Who came from the Rue Brêda!" " Who wanted to know us!" "Whom we wouldn't know!" I turned my Voightlander where their Voight- landers turned ; there, in the royal box, leaning back in the fauteuil that marked her rank, there, with her lovely hazel eyes, her witching smile, her radiant beauty, matchless as the pearls gleaming above her brow, there sat the " adventuress—or worse!" of Vicq d'Azyr; the "evidently a not proper person" of my discerning sisters—H. S. H. Princess Hélène, Grand-Duchess of Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrel- itz! Great Heavens! how had we never guessed her before? How had we never divined her identity? How had we never remembered all we had heard of her love of laisser-aller, her taste for adventure, her delight in traveling, when she could, unattended and incognita? How had we never put this and that together, and penetrated the metamorphosis? " And I called lier not a proper person!" gasped Lady Maréchale, again shrinking back behind the azure curtains; the projectiles she had shot with such vindictive severity, such delighted acrimony,from the murderous mortar of malice, recoiling back upon her head for once, and crushing her to powder. What reception would they have now at the Court? Von Rosenlau would be powerless; the Pullingers themselves would be better off! Pérette's pot of milk was smashed and spilt! "Adieu, veau, vache, co- chon, Couvée!" When the pitcher lies shivered into fragments, and the milk is spilt, you know, poor Pérette's dreams are shivered and spilt with them. " I have not seen you at the palace yet?" asked her Grace of Frangipane. "We do not see you at the Court, mesdames?" asked M. de la Croix-et-Cordons. "How did it happen you were not at the Duchess's ball last night?" asked "those odious Pullingers." Andwhat had my sister to say in reply? My clematis secured me a charming reception—how charm- ing I don't feel called upon to reveal—but Princess Hélène, with that calm dignity which easily replaced, when she chose, her witching aliandon, turned the tables upon her detractors, and taught them how dangerous it may be to speak ill—of the wrong people. THE END. A STUDY A LA LODIS QUATORZE : PENDANT TO A POETEAIT BY MIGNAED. later than usual, when I heard the roll of a car- riage in the court-yard below. I looked through the half-open persiennes with a semi-presenti- ment that it was my sweet foreigner who was leaving ere I could presume on my clematis or vmprove our acquaintance. True enough, she St was, leaving Vic d'Azyr in a traveling-car- House we drove. They" were in the middle of the second act of " Ernani." " Ernani" wasstale to us all, and we naturally lorgné'd the boxes in lieu of the stage. I had turned my glass on the left- hand stage-box, and was going steadily round, when a faint cry ot dismay, alarm, amazement, horror, broke, muffled and low, fiom mesdames mes sœurs. Their lorgnons were riveted on one spot; their cheeks were blanched; their She was surpassingly fair, Madame la Mar- quise. Mignard's portraits of her may fully rival his far-famed Portrait aux Amours. One of them has her painted as Venus Victrix, in the fashion of the day; one of them, as herself, as Léontine Opportune de Vivonne de Renne- court, Marquise de la Riviere, wdth her crève cœurs, and her diamonds, and her gay smile, showing her teeth, white and gleaming as the pearls mingled with her curls à la mode Montespan. Not Louise de la Beaumele-Blanc, when the elm boughs of St. Germain first flung their shadow on her golden head, before it bent for the Carmelite veil before the altar in the Rue St. Jacques; not Henriette d'Angleterre, when she listened to the trouvères' romances sung un- der her balcony at St. Cloud, before her young I life was quenched by the hand of Morel and the i order of Monsieur; not Athénaïs deMortemart, when the liveries of lapis lazuli blue dashed through the streets of Paris, and the outriders cleared her path with their whips, before the game was lost, and the iron spikes were fastened inside the Montespan bracelets ;—none of them, her contemporaries and acquaintances, eclipsed in loveliness Madame la Marquise. Had she been but fair instead of dark, the brown Bour- bon eyes would have fallen on her of a surety; she would have outshone the lapis lazuli liveries with a royal guard of scarlet and gold, and her friend Athénais would have hated her as that fair lady hated ' ' la sotte Fontanges" and ' ' Saint