"'Ci git mon Giles, Ah! qu'il est bien, Pour son repos, Et pour le mien!'

"Men are like my Angora tabby: stroke them smoothly and they will purr and rub noses with you; but stroke them the wrong way and whirr! they scratch your hands and out of the window they fly! When I was the Charming--"

"Oh, good dame, thanks! thanks! for the comfort you have given me!"

interrupted Caroline, not caring for a fresh reminiscence of the Charming Josephine. "Leave me, I pray. My mind is in a sad tumult. I would fain rest. I have much to fear, but something also to hope for now," she said, leaning back in her chair in deep and quiet thought.

"The Chateau is very still now, my Lady," replied the dame, "the servants are all worn out with long attendance and fast asleep. Let my Lady go to her own apartments, which are bright and airy. It will be better for her than this dull chamber."

"True, dame!" Caroline rose at the suggestion. "I like not this secret chamber. It suited my sad mood, but now I seem to long for air and sunshine. I will go with you to my own room."

They ascended the winding stair, and Caroline seated herself by the window of her own chamber, overlooking the park and gardens of the Chateau. The huge, sloping forest upon the mountain side, formed, in the distance, with the blue sky above it, a landscape of beauty, upon which her eyes lingered with a sense of freshness and delight.

Dame Tremblay left her to her musings, to go, she said, to rouse up the lazy maids and menservants, to straighten up the confusion of everything in the Chateau after the late long feast.

On the great stair she encountered M. Froumois, the Intendant's valet, a favorite gossip of the dame's, who used to invite him into her snug parlor, where she regaled him with tea and cake, or, if late in the evening, with wine and nipperkins of Cognac, while he poured into her ear stories of the gay life of Paris and the bonnes fortunes of himself and master--for the valet in plush would have disdained being less successful among the maids in the servants' hall than his master in velvet in the boudoirs of their mistresses.

M. Froumois accepted the dame's invitation, and the two were presently engaged in a melee of gossip over the sayings and doings of fashionable society in Quebec.

The dame, holding between her thumb and finger a little china cup of tea well laced, she called it, with Cognac, remarked,--"They fairly run the Intendant down, Froumois: there is not a girl in the city but laces her boots to distraction since it came out that the Intendant admires a neat, trim ankle. I had a trim ankle myself when I was the Charming Josephine, M. Froumois!"

"And you have yet, dame,--if I am a judge," replied Froumois, glancing down with an air of gallantry.

"And you are accounted a judge--and ought to be a good one, Froumois! A gentleman can't live at court as you have done, and learn nothing of the points of a fine woman!" The good dame liked a compliment as well as ever she had done at Lake Beauport in her hey-day of youth and beauty.

"Why, no, dame," replied he; "one can't live at Court and learn nothing!

We study the points of fine women as we do fine statuary in the gallery of the Louvre, only the living beauties will compel us to see their best points if they have them!" M. Froumois looked very critical as he took a pinch from the dame's box, which she held out to him. Her hand and wrist were yet unexceptionable, as he could not help remarking.

"But what think you, really, of our Quebec beauties? Are they not a good imitation of Versailles?" asked the dame.

"A good imitation! They are the real porcelain! For beauty and affability Versailles cannot exceed them. So says the Intendant, and so say I!," replied the gay valet. "Why, look you, Dame Tremblay!"

continued he, extending his well-ringed fingers, "they do give gentlemen no end of hopes here! We have only to stretch out our ten digits and a ladybird will light on every one of them! It was so at Versailles--it is just so here. The ladies in Quebec do know how to appreciate a real gentleman!"

"Yes, that is what makes the ladies of Ville Marie so jealous and angry," replied the dame; "the King's officers and all the great catches land at Quebec first, when they come out from France, and we take toll of them! We don't let a gentleman of them get up to Ville Marie without a Quebec engagement tacked to his back, so that all Ville Marie can read it, and die of pure spite! I say we, Froumois; but you understand I speak of myself only as the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport. I must content myself now with telling over my past glories."

"Well dame, I don't know but you are glorious yet! But tell me, what has got over my master to-day? Was the unknown lady unkind? Something has angered him, I am sure!"

"I cannot tell you, Froumois: women's moods are not to be explained, even by themselves." The dame had been sensibly touched by Caroline's confidence in her, and she was too loyal to her sex to repeat even to Froumois her recent conversation with Caroline.

They found plenty of other topics, however, and over the tea and Cognac the dame and valet passed an hour of delightful gossip.

Caroline, left to the solitude of her chamber, sat silently with her hands clasped in her lap. Her thoughts pressed inward upon her. She looked out without seeing the fair landscape before her eyes.

Tears and sorrow she had welcomed in a spirit of bitter penitence for her fault in loving one who no longer regarded her. "I do not deserve any man's regard," murmured she, as she laid her soul on the rack of self-accusation, and wrung its tenderest fibres with the pitiless rigor of a secret inquisitor. She utterly condemned herself while still trying to find some excuse for her unworthy lover. At times a cold half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had lost all--name, fame, home, and kindred--for his sake! She clung to the few pitying words spoken by him as a shipwrecked sailor to the plank which chance has thrown in his way. It might float her for a few hours, and she was grateful.

Immersed in these reflections, Caroline sat gazing at the clouds, now transformed into royal robes of crimson and gold--the gorgeous train of the sun filled the western horizon. She raised her pale hands to her head, lifting the mass of dark hair from her temples. The fevered blood, madly coursing, pulsed in her ear like the stroke of a bell.

She remembered a sunset like this on the shores of the Bay of Minas, where the thrush and oriole twittered their even-song before seeking their nests, where the foliage of the trees was all ablaze with golden fire, and a shimmering path of sunlight lay upon the still waters like a glorious bridge leading from themselves to the bright beyond.

On that well-remembered night her heart had yielded to Bigot's pleadings. She had leaned her head upon his bosom, and received the kiss and gave the pledge that bound her to him forever.

The sun kept sinking--the forests on the mountain tops burst into a bonfire of glory. Shadows went creeping up the hill-sides until the highest crest alone flamed out as a beacon of hope to her troubled soul.

Suddenly, like a voice from the spirit world, the faint chime of the bells of Charlebourg floated on the evening breeze: it was the Angelus, calling men to prayer and rest from their daily labor. Sweetly the soft reverberation floated through the forests, up the hill-sides, by plain and river, entering the open lattices of Chateau and cottage, summoning rich and poor alike to their duty of prayer and praise. It reminded men of the redemption of the world by the divine miracle of the incarnation announced by Gabriel, the angel of God, to the ear of Mary blessed among women.

The soft bells rang on. Men blessed them, and ceased from their toils in field and forest. Mothers knelt by the cradle, and uttered the sacred words with emotions such as only mothers feel. Children knelt by their mothers, and learned the story of God's pity in appearing upon earth as a little child, to save mankind from their sins. The dark Huron setting his snares in the forest and the fishers on the shady stream stood still. The voyageur sweeping his canoe over the broad river suspended his oar as the solemn sound reached him, and he repeated the angel's words and went on his way with renewed strength.

The sweet bells came like a voice of pity and consolation to the ear of Caroline. She knelt down, and clasping her hands, repeated the prayer of millions,--

"'Ave Maria! gratia plena.'"

She continued kneeling, offering up prayer after prayer for God's forgiveness, both for herself and for him who had brought her to this pass of sin and misery. "'Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!'" repeated she, bowing herself to the ground. "I am the chief of sinners; who shall deliver me from this body of sin and afliction?"

The sweet bells kept ringing. They woke reminiscences of voices of by-gone days. She heard her father's tones, not in anger as he would speak now, but kind and loving as in her days of innocence. She heard her mother, long dead--oh, how happily dead! for she could not die of sorrow now over her dear child's fall. She heard the voices of the fair companions of her youth, who would think shame of her now; and amidst them all, the tones of the persuasive tongue that wooed her maiden love.

How changed it all seemed! and yet, as the repetition of two or three notes of a bar of music brings to recollection the whole melody to which it belongs, the few kind words of Bigot, spoken that morning, swept all before them in a drift of hope. Like a star struggling in the mist the faint voice of an angel was heard afar off in the darkness.

The ringing of the Angelus went on. Her heart was utterly melted. Her eyes, long parched, as a spent fountain in the burning desert, were suddenly filled with tears. She felt no longer the agony of the eyes that cannot weep. The blessed tears flowed quietly as the waters of Shiloh, bringing relief to her poor soul, famishing for one true word of affection. Long after the sweet bells ceased their chime Caroline kept on praying for him, and long after the shades of night had fallen over the Chateau of Beaumanoir.

CHAPTER XVI. ANGeLIQUE DES MELOISES.

"Come and see me to-night, Le Gardeur." Angelique des Meloises drew the bridle sharply as she halted her spirited horse in front of the officer of the guard at the St. Louis Gate. "Come and see me to-night: I shall be at home to no one but you. Will you come?"

Had Le Gardeur de Repentigny been ever so laggard and indifferent a lover the touch of that pretty hand, and the glance from the dark eye that shot fire down into his very heart, would have decided him to obey this seductive invitation.

He held her hand as he looked up with a face radiant with joy. "I will surely come, Angelique; but tell me--"

She interrupted him laughingly: "No; I will tell you nothing till you come! So good-by till then."

He would fain have prolonged the interview; but she capriciously shook the reins, and with a silvery laugh rode through the gateway and into the city. In a few minutes she dismounted at her own home, and giving her horse in charge of a groom, ran lightly up the broad steps into the house.

The family mansion of the Des Meloises was a tall and rather pretentious edifice overlooking the fashionable Rue St. Louis.

The house was, by a little artifice on the part of Angelique, empty of visitors this evening. Even her brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was to-night enjoying the more congenial society of the officers of the Regiment de Bearn. At this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay topic was tossed from end to end of the crowded mess-table.

"Mademoiselle's hair has got loose and looks like a Huron's," said her maid Lizette, as her nimble fingers rearranged the rich dark-golden locks of Angelique, which reached to the floor as she sat upon her fauteuil.

"No matter, Lizette; do it up a la Pompadour, and make haste. My brain is in as great confusion as my hair. I need repose for an hour.

Remember, Lizette, I am at home to no one to-night except the Chevalier de Repentigny."

"The Chevalier called this afternoon, Mademoiselle, and was sorry he did not find you at home," replied Lizette, who saw the eyelashes of her mistress quiver and droop, while a flush deepened for an instant the roseate hue of her cheek.

"I was in the country, that accounts for it! There, my hair will do!"