Dame Tremblay, shrewd as became the whilom Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport, had a kind heart, nevertheless, under her old-fashioned bodice. She sincerely pitied this young creature who was passing her days in prayer and her nights in weeping, although she might rather blame her in secret for not appreciating better the honor of a residence at Beaumanoir and the friendship of the Intendant.

"I do not think she is prettier than I, when I was the Charming Josephine!" thought the old dame. "I did not despise Beaumanoir in those days, and why should she now? But she will be neither maid nor mistress here long, I am thinking!" The dame saluted the young lady with great deference, and quietly asked if she needed her service.

"Oh! it is you, good dame!"--Caroline answered her own thoughts, rather than the question,--"tell me what makes this unusual silence in the Chateau?"

"The Intendant and all the guests have gone to the city, my Lady: a great officer of the Governor's came to summon them. To be sure, not many of them were fit to go, but after a deal of bathing and dressing the gentlemen got off. Such a clatter of horsemen as they rode out, I never heard before, my Lady; you must have heard them even here!"

"Yes, dame!" replied Caroline, "I heard it; and the Intendant, has he accompanied them?"

"Yes, my Lady; the freshest and foremost cavalier of them all. Wine and late hours never hurt the Intendant. It is for that I praise him, for he is a gallant gentleman, who knows what politeness is to women."

Caroline shrank a little at the thought expressed by the dame. "What causes you to say that?" asked she.

"I will tell, my Lady! 'Dame Tremblay!' said he, just before he left the Chateau. 'Dame Tremblay'--he always calls me that when he is formal, but sometimes when he is merry, he calls me 'Charming Josephine,' in remembrance of my young days, concerning which he has heard flattering stories, I dare say--"

"In heaven's name! go on, dame!" Caroline, depressed as she was, felt the dame's garrulity like a pinch on her impatience. "What said the Intendant to you, on leaving the Chateau?"

"Oh, he spoke to me of you quite feelingly--that is, bade me take the utmost care of the poor lady in the secret chamber. I was to give you everything you wished, and keep off all visitors, if such were your own desire."

A train of powder does not catch fire from a spark more quickly than Caroline's imagination from these few words of the old housekeeper. "Did he say that, good dame? God bless you, and bless him for those words!"

Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of his tenderness, which, although half fictitious, she wholly believed.

"Yes, dame," continued she. "It is my most earnest desire to be secluded from all visitors. I wish to see no one but yourself. Have you many visitors--ladies, I mean--at the Chateau?"

"Oh, yes! the ladies of the city are not likely to forget the invitations to the balls and dinners of the bachelor Intendant of New France. It is the most fashionable thing in the city, and every lady is wild to attend them. There is one, the handsomest and gayest of them all, who, they say, would not object even to become the bride of the Intendant."

It was a careless shaft of the old dame's, but it went to the heart of Caroline. "Who is she, good dame?--pray tell me!"

"Oh, my Lady, I should fear her anger, if she knew what I say! She is the most terrible coquette in the city--worshipped by the men, and hated, of course, by the women, who all imitate her in dress and style as much as they possibly can, because they see it takes! But every woman fears for either husband or lover when Angelique des Meloises is her rival."

"Is that her name? I never heard it before, dame!" remarked Caroline, with a shudder. She felt instinctively that the name was one of direful omen to herself.

"Pray God you may never have reason to hear it again," replied Dame Tremblay. "She it was who went to the mansion of Sieur Tourangeau and with her riding-whip lashed the mark of a red cross upon the forehead of his daughter, Cecile, scarring her forever, because she had presumed to smile kindly upon a young officer, a handsome fellow, Le Gardeur de Repentigny--whom any woman might be pardoned for admiring!" added the old dame, with a natural touch of the candor of her youth. "If Angelique takes a fancy to the Intendant, it will be dangerous for any other woman to stand in her way!"

Caroline gave a frightened look at the dame's description of a possible rival in the Intendant's love. "You know more of her, dame! Tell me all!

Tell me the worst I have to learn!" pleaded the poor girl.

"The worst, my Lady! I fear no one can tell the worst of Angelique des Meloises,--at least, would not dare to, although I know nothing bad of her, except that she would like to have all the men to herself, and so spite all the women!"

"But she must regard that young officer with more than common affection, to have acted so savagely to Mademoiselle Tourangeau?" Caroline, with a woman's quickness, had caught at that gleam of hope through the darkness.

"Oh, yes, my Lady! All Quebec knows that Angelique loves the Seigneur de Repentigny, for nothing is a secret in Quebec if more than one person knows it, as I myself well recollect; for when I was the Charming Josephine, my very whispers were all over the city by the next dinner hour, and repeated at every table, as gentlemen cracked their almonds and drank their wine in toasts to the Charming Josephine."

"Pshaw! dame! Tell me about the Seigneur de Repentigny! Does Angelique des Meloises love him, think you?" Caroline's eyes were fixed like stars upon the dame, awaiting her reply.

"It takes women to read women, they say," replied the dame, "and every lady in Quebec would swear that Angelique loves the Seigneur de Repentigny; but I know that, if she can, she will marry the Intendant, whom she has fairly bewitched with her wit and beauty, and you know a clever woman can marry any man she pleases, if she only goes the right way about it: men are such fools!"

Caroline grew faint. Cold drops gathered on her brow. A veil of mist floated before her eyes. "Water! good dame water!" she articulated, after several efforts.

Dame Tremblay ran, and got her a drink of water and such restoratives as were at hand. The dame was profuse in words of sympathy: she had gone through life with a light, lively spirit, as became the Charming Josephine, but never lost the kindly heart that was natural to her.

Caroline rallied from her faintness. "Have you seen what you tell me, dame, or is it but the idle gossip of the city, no truth in it? Oh, say it is the idle gossip of the city! Francois Bigot is not going to marry this lady? He is not so faithless"--to me, she was about to add, but did not.

"So faithless to her, she means, poor soul!" soliliquized the dame. "It is but little you know my gay master if you think he values a promise made to any woman, except to deceive her! I have seen too many birds of that feather not to know a hawk, from beak to claw. When I was the Charming Josephine I took the measure of men's professions, and never was deceived but once. Men's promises are big as clouds, and as empty and as unstable!"

"My good dame, I am sure you have a kind heart," said Caroline, in reply to a sympathizing pressure of the hand. "But you do not know, you cannot imagine what injustice you do the Intendant"--Caroline hesitated and blushed--"by mentioning the report of his marriage with that lady. Men speak untruly of him--"

"My dear Lady, it is what the women say that frightens one! The men are angry, and won't believe it; but the women are jealous, and will believe it even if there be nothing in it! As a faithful servant I ought to have no eyes to watch my master, but I have not failed to observe that the Chevalier Bigot is caught man-fashion, if not husband-fashion, in the snares of the artful Angelique. But may I speak my real opinion to you, my Lady?"

Caroline was eagerly watching the lips of the garrulous dame. She started, brushed back with a stroke of her hand the thick hair that had fallen over her ear,--"Oh, speak all your thoughts, good dame! If your next words were to kill me, speak them!"

"My next words will not harm you, my Lady," said she, with a meaning smile, "if you will accept the opinion of an old woman, who learned the ways of men when she was the Charming Josephine! You must not conclude that because the Chevalier Intendant admires, or even loves Angelique des Meloises, he is going to marry her. That is not the fashion of these times. Men love beauty, and marry money; love is more plenty than matrimony, both at Paris and at Quebec, at Versailles as well as at Beaumanoir or even at Lake Beauport, as I learned to my cost when I was the Charming Josephine!"

Caroline blushed crimson at the remark of Dame Tremblay. Her voice quivered with emotion. "It is sin to cheapen love like that, dame! And yet I know we have sometimes to bury our love in our heart, with no hope of resurrection."

"Sometimes? Almost always, my Lady! When I was the Charming Josephine--nay, listen, Lady: my story is instructive." Caroline composed herself to hear the dame's recital. "When I was the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport I began by believing that men were angels sent for the salvation of us women. I thought that love was a better passport than money to lead to matrimony; but I was a fool for my fancy!

I had a good score of lovers any day. The gallants praised my beauty, and it was the envy of the city; they flattered me for my wit,--nay, even fought duels for my favor, and called me the Charming Josephine, but not one offered to marry me! At twenty I ran away for love, and was forsaken. At thirty I married for money, and was rid of all my illusions. At forty I came as housekeeper to Beaumanoir, and have lived here comfortably ever since I know what royal intendants are! Old Hocquart wore night-caps in the daytime, took snuff every minute, and jilted a lady in France because she had not the dower of a duchess to match his hoards of wealth! The Chevalier Bigot's black eye and jolly laugh draw after him all the girls of the city, but not one will catch him! Angelique des Meloises is first in his favor, but I see it is as clear as print in the eye of the Intendant that he will never marry her--and you will prevent him, my Lady!"

"I? I prevent him!" exclaimed Caroline in amazement. "Alas! good dame, you little know how lighter than thistledown floating on the wind is my influence with the Intendant."

"You do yourself injustice, my Lady. Listen! I never saw a more pitying glance fall from the eye of man than the Intendant cast upon you one day when he saw you kneeling in your oratory unconscious of his presence.

His lips quivered, and a tear gathered under his thick eyelashes as he silently withdrew. I heard him mutter a blessing upon you, and curses upon La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire. I was a faithful servant and kept my counsel. I could see, however, that the Intendant thought more of the lovely lady of Beaumanoir than of all the ambitious demoiselles of Quebec."

Caroline sprang up, and casting off the deep reserve she had maintained, threw her arms round the neck of Dame Tremblay, and half choked with emotion, exclaimed,--

"Is that true? good, dear friend of friends! Did the Chevalier Bigot bless me, and curse La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire! His heart's desire! but you do not know--you cannot guess what that means, dame?"

"As if I did not know a man's heart's desire! but I am a woman, and can guess! I was not the Charming Josephine for nothing, good Lady!" replied the dame, smiling, as the enraptured girl laid her fair, smooth cheek upon that of the old housekeeper.

"And did he look so pityingly as you describe, and bless me as I was praying, unwitting of his presence?" repeated she, with a look that searched the dame through and through.

"He did, my Lady; he looked, just then, as a man looks upon a woman whom he really loves. I know how men look when they really love us and when they only pretend to? No deceiving me!" added she. "When I was the Charming Josephine--"

"Ave Maria!" said Caroline, crossing herself with deep devotion, not heeding the dame's reminiscences of Lake Beauport. "Heaven has heard my prayers! I can die happy!"

"Heaven forbid you should die at all, my Lady! You die? The Intendant loves you. I see it in his face that he will never marry Angelique des Meloises. He may indeed marry a great marchioness with her lap full of gold and chateaux--that is, if the King commands him: that is how the grand gentlemen of the Court marry. They wed rank, and love beauty--the heart to one, the hand to another. It would be my way too, were I a man and women so simple as we all are. If a girl cannot marry for love, she will marry for money; and if not for money, she can always marry for spite--I did, when I was the Charming Josephine!"

"It is a shocking and sinful way, to marry without love!" said Caroline, warmly.

"It is better than no way at all!" replied the dame, regretting her remark when she saw her lady's face flush like crimson. The dame's opinions were rather the worse for wear in her long journey through life, and would not be adopted by a jury of prudes. "When I was the Charming Josephine," continued she, "I had the love of half the gallants of Quebec, but not one offered his hand. What was I to do? 'Crook a finger, or love and linger,' as they say in Alencon, where I was born?"

"Fie, dame! Don't say such things!" said Caroline, with a shamed, reproving look. "I would think better of the Intendant." Her gratitude led her to imagine excuses for him. The few words reported to her by Dame Tremblay she repeated with silently moving lips and tender reiteration. They lingered in her ear like the fugue of a strain of music, sung by a choir of angelic spirits. "Those were his very words, dame?" added she again, repeating them--not for inquiry, but for secret joy.

"His very words, my Lady! But why should the Royal Intendant not have his heart's desire as well as that great lady in France? If any one had forbidden my marrying the poor Sieur Tremblay, for whom I did not care two pins, I would have had him for spite--yes, if I had had to marry him as the crows do, on a tree-top!"

"But no one bade you or forbade you, dame! You were happy that no one came between you and your heart's desire!" replied Caroline.

Dame Tremblay laughed out merrily at the idea. "Poor Giles Tremblay my heart's desire! Listen, Lady, I could no more get that than you could.

When I was the Charming Josephine there was but one, out of all my admirers, whom I really cared for, and he, poor fellow, had a wife already! So what was I to do? I threw my line at last in utter despair, and out of the troubled sea I drew the Sieur Tremblay, whom I married, and soon put cosily underground with a heavy tombstone on top of him to keep him down, with this inscription, which you may see for yourself, my Lady, if you will, in the churchyard where he lies: