"But what said Colonel Philibert of himself? Never mind about me."

"Oh, impatient that you are! He said nothing of himself. He was absorbed in my stories concerning you. I told him as pretty a fable as La Fontaine related of the Avare qui avait perdu son tresor! I said you were a beautiful chatelaine besieged by an army of lovers, but the knight errant Fortunatus had alone won your favor, and would receive your hand! The brave Colonel! I could see he winced at this. His steel cuirass was not invulnerable. I drew blood, which is more than you would have dared to do, Amelie! But I discovered the truth hidden in his heart. He is in love with you, Amelie de Repentigny!"

"Mad girl! How could you? How dare you speak so of me? What must Colonel Philibert think?"

"Think? He thinks you must be the most perfect of your sex! Why, his mind was made up about you, Amelie, before he said a word to me. Indeed, he only just wanted to enjoy the supernal pleasure of hearing me sing the praises of Amelie De Repentigny to the tune composed by himself."

"Which you seem to have done, Angelique!"

"As musically as Mere St. Borgia when singing vespers in the Ursulines,"

was Angelique's flippant reply.

Amelie knew how useless it was to expostulate. She swallowed her mingled pleasure and vexation salt with tears she could not help. She changed the subject by a violent wrench, and asked Angelique when she had last seen Le Gardeur.

"At the Intendant's levee the other day. How like you he is, too, only less amiable!"

Angelique did not respond readily to her friend's question about her brother.

"Less amiable? that is not like my brother. Why do you think him less amiable than me?"

"Because he got angry with me at the ball given in honor of the arrival of the Intendant, and I have not been able to restore him to perfect good humor with me since."

"Oh, then Le Gardeur completes the trio of those who are proof against your fascinations?" Amelie was secretly glad to hear of the displeasure of Le Gardeur with Angelique.

"Not at all, I hope, Amelie. I don't place Le Gardeur in the same category with my other admirers. But he got offended because I seemed to neglect him a little to cultivate this gay new Intendant. Do you know him?"

"No; nor wish to! I have heard much said to his disadvantage. The Chevalier La Corne St. Luc has openly expressed his dislike of the Intendant for something that happened in Acadia."

"Oh, the Chevalier La Corne is always so decided in his likes and dislikes: one must either be very good or very bad to satisfy him!"

replied Angelique with a scornful pout of her lips.

"Don't speak ill of my godfather, Angelique; better be profane on any other topic: you know my ideal of manly virtues is the Chevalier La Corne," replied Amelie.

"Well, I won't pull down your idol, then! I respect the brave old soldier, too; but could wish him with the army in Flanders!"

"Thousands of estimable people augur ill from the accession of the Intendant Bigot in New France, besides the Chevalier La Corne," Amelie said after a pause. She disliked censuring even the Intendant.

"Yes," replied Angelique, "the Honnetes Gens do, who think themselves bound to oppose the Intendant, because he uses the royal authority in a regal way, and makes every one, high and low, do their devoir to Church and State."

"While he does his devoir to none! But I am no politician, Angelique.

But when so many good people call the Intendant a bad man, it behooves one to be circumspect in 'cultivating him,' as you call it."

"Well, he is rich enough to pay for all the broken pots: they say he amassed untold wealth in Acadia, Amelie!"

"And lost the province for the king!" retorted Amelie, with all the asperity her gentle but patriotic spirit was capable of. "Some say he sold the country."

"I don't care!" replied the reckless beauty, "he is like Joseph in Egypt, next to Pharaoh in authority. He can shoe his horses with gold! I wish he would shoe me with golden slippers--I would wear them, Amelie!"

Angelique stamped her dainty foot upon the ground, as if in fancy she already had them on.

"It is shocking if you mean it!" remarked Amelie pityingly, for she felt Angelique was speaking her genuine thoughts. "But is it true that the Intendant is really as dissolute as rumor says?"

"I don't care if it be true: he is noble, gallant, polite, rich, and all-powerful at Court. He is reported to be prime favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour. What more do I want?" replied Angelique warmly.

Amelie knew enough by report of the French Court to cause her to shrink instinctively, as from a repulsive insect, at the name of the mistress of Louis XV. She trembled at the thought of Angelique's infatuation, or perversity, in suffering herself to be attracted by the glitter of the vices of the Royal Intendant.

"Angelique!" exclaimed she, "I have heard things of the Intendant that would make me tremble for you, were you in earnest."

"But I am in earnest! I mean to win and wear the Intendant of New France, to show my superiority over the whole bevy of beauties competing for his hand. There is not a girl in Quebec but would run away with him tomorrow."

"Fie, Angelique! such a libel upon our sex! You know better. But you cannot love him?"

"Love him? No!" Angelique repeated the denial scornfully. "Love him! I never thought of love and him together! He is not handsome, like your brother Le Gardeur, who is my beau-ideal of a man I could love; nor has the intellect and nobility of Colonel Philibert, who is my model of a heroic man. I could love such men as them. But my ambition would not be content with less than a governor or royal intendant in New France. In old France I would not put up with less than the King himself!"

Angelique laughed at her own extravagance, but she believed in it all the same. Amelie, though shocked at her wildness, could not help smiling at her folly.

"Have you done raving?" said she; "I have no right to question your selection of a lover or doubt your power, Angelique. But are you sure there exists no insurmountable obstacle to oppose these high aspirations? It is whispered that the Intendant has a wife, whom he keeps in the seclusion of Beaumanoir. Is that true?"

The words burnt like fire. Angelique's eyes flashed out daggers. She clenched her delicate hands until her nails drew blood from her velvet palms. Her frame quivered with suppressed passion. She grasped her companion fiercely by the arm, exclaiming,--"You have hit the secret now, Amelie! It was to speak of that I sought you out this morning, for I know you are wise, discreet, and every way better than I. It is all true what I have said, and more too, Amelie. Listen! The Intendant has made love to me with pointed gallantry that could have no other meaning but that he honorably sought my hand. He has made me talked of and hated by my own sex, who envied his preference of me. I was living in the most gorgeous of fool's paradises, when a bird brought to my ear the astounding news that a woman, beautiful as Diana, had been found in the forest of Beaumanoir by some Hurons of Lorette, who were out hunting with the Intendant. She was accompanied by a few Indians of a strange tribe, the Abenaquais of Acadia. The woman was utterly exhausted by fatigue, and lay asleep on a couch of dry leaves under a tree, when the astonished Hurons led the Intendant to the spot where she lay.

"Don't interrupt me, Amelie; I see you are amazed, but let me go on!"

She held the hands of her companion firmly in her lap as she proceeded:

"The Intendant was startled out of all composure at the apparition of the sleeping lady. He spoke eagerly to the Abenaquais in their own tongue, which was unintelligible to the Hurons. When he had listened to a few words of their explanation, he ran hastily to the lady, kissed her, called her by name, 'Caroline!' She woke up suddenly, and recognizing the Intendant, embraced him, crying 'Francois! 'Francois!'

and fainted in his arms.

"The Chevalier was profoundly agitated, blessing and banning, in the same breath, the fortune that had led her to him. He gave her wine, restored her to consciousness, talked with her long, and sometimes angrily; but to no avail, for the woman, in accents of despair, exclaimed in French, which the Hurons understood, that the Intendant might kill and bury her there, but she would never, never return home any more."

Angelique scarcely took breath as she continued her eager recital.

"The Intendant, overpowered either by love of her or fear of her, ceased his remonstrances. He gave some pieces of gold to the Abenaquais, and dismissed them. The strange Indians kissed her on both hands as they would a queen, and with many adieus vanished into the forest. The lady, attended by Bigot, remained seated under the tree till nightfall, when he conducted her secretly to the Chateau, where she still remains in perfect seclusion in a secret chamber, they say, and has been seen by none save one or two of the Intendant's most intimate companions."

"Heavens! what a tale of romance! How learned you all this, Angelique?"

exclaimed Amelie, who had listened with breathless attention to the narrative.

"Oh, partly from a hint from a Huron girl, and the rest from the Intendant's Secretary. Men cannot keep secrets that women are interested in knowing! I could make De Pean talk the Intendant's head off his shoulders, if I had him an hour in my confessional. But all my ingenuity could not extract from him what he did not know--who that mysterious lady is, her name and family."

"Could the Huron hunters give no guess?" asked Amelie, thoroughly interested in Angelique's story.

"No. They learned by signs, however, from the Abenaquais, that she was a lady of a noble family in Acadia which had mingled its patrician blood with that of the native chiefs and possessors of the soil. The Abenaquais were chary of their information, however: they would only say she was a great white lady, and as good as any saint in the calendar."

"I would give five years of my life to know who and what that woman is!"

Angelique added, as she leaned over the parapet, gazing intently at the great forest that lay beyond Charlebourg, in which was concealed the Chateau of Beaumanoir.

"It is a strange mystery. But I would not seek to unravel it, Angelique," remarked Amelie, "I feel there is sin in it. Do not touch it: it will only bring mischief upon you if you do!"

"Mischief! So be it! But I will know the worst! The Intendant is deceiving me! Woe be to him and her if I am to be their intended victim!

Will you not assist me, Amelie, to discover the truth of this secret?"