t I know, that
poor Arthur came by his death."

II. A HIDDEN GRIEF

Between the Seine and the little river Loing lies a wide flat country,
skirted on the one side by the Forest of Fontainebleau, and marked out
as to its southern limits by the towns of Moret, Montereau, and Nemours.
It is a dreary country; little knolls of hills appear only at rare
intervals, and a coppice here and there among the fields affords
for game; and beyond, upon every side, stretches the endless gray or
yellowish horizon peculiar to Beauce, Sologne, and Berri.

In the very centre of the plain, at equal distances from Moret and
Montereau, the traveler passes the old chateau of Saint-Lange, standing
amid surroundings which lack neither dignity nor stateliness. There are
magnificent avenues of elm-trees, great gardens encircled by the moat,
and a circumference of walls about a huge manorial pile which represents
the profits of the _maltote_, the gains of farmers-general, legalized
malversation, or the vast fortunes of great houses now brought low
beneath the hammer of the Civil Code.

Should any artist or dreamer of dreams chance to stray along the roads
full of deep ruts, or over the heavy land which secures the place
against intrusion, he will wonder how it happened that this romantic
old place was set down in a savanna of corn-land, a desert of chalk,
and sand, and marl, where gaiety dies away, and melancholy is a natural
product of the soil. The voiceless solitude, the monotonous horizon line
which weigh upon the spirits are negative beauties, which only suit with
sorrow that refuses to be comforted.

Hither, at the close of the year 1820, came a woman, still young, well
known in Paris for her charm, her fair face, and her wit; and to the
immense astonishment of the little village a mile away, this woman of
high rank and corresponding fortune took up her abode at Saint-Lange.

From time immemorial, farmers and laborers had seen no gentry at the
chateau. The estate, considerable though it was, had been left in charge
of a land-steward and the house to the old servants. Wherefore the
appearance of the lady of the manor caused a kind of sensation in the
district.

A group had gathered in the yard of the wretched little wineshop at the
end of the village (where the road forks to Nemours and Moret) to see
the carriage pass. It went by slowly, for the Marquise had come
from Paris with her own horses, and those on the lookout had ample