ore her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble
combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly
ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his
confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her,
she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures
and amusements, of the newest dress, of the fetes interrupted by the
King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed
danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state;
of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the
massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and
cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by
step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily
Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it
springs at last with one bound upon its victim.

"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do
treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can
discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours;
but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he
takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our
bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole--he
cannot hear us surely;"--the Duke of Alencon assured her, with
ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot--"that
young man--La Mole!--you love him well, I know, my son; and you know
not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."

"La Mole--a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.

"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it
loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my
own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."

The Duke of Alencon grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself
with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,

"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly
misinformed?"

"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine--"and my heart bleeds to say
it--I have it no longer in my power to doubt."

"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily
from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This
is some calumny."

"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the
Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadv