offered a cordial
salutation and welcome to Isabelle and himself. A great crowd of
tenantry stationed near at hand hailed them with lusty cheers, making
many demonstrations of hearty joy and delight, and his own happiness
seemed to be complete. Suddenly the sound of a horn was heard, and at
a little distance he saw the beautiful Yolande de Foix, radiant and
charming as ever, riding slowly by--apparently returning from the chase.
He followed her with his eyes admiringly, but felt no regret as her
figure was lost to view amid the thick gorse bushes bordering the road
down which she was going, and turned with ever increasing love and
adoration to the sweet being at his side. The memory of the fair
Yolande, whom he had once worshipped in a vague, boyish way, faded
before the delicious reality of his passionate love for Isabelle;
who satisfied so fully every requirement of his nature, and had so
thoroughly healed the wound made by the scorn and ridicule of the other,
that it seemed to be entirely forgotten then.

It was not easy for de Sigognac to rouse himself after this entrancing
vision, which had been so startlingly real, and fix his attention upon
the verses he had promised to revise and alter for Isabelle, but when at
last he had succeeded, he threw himself into his task with enthusiasm,
and wrote far into the night--inspired by the thought of the sweet lips
that had called him her poet, and that were to pronounce the words he
penned; and he was rewarded for his exertions by Isabelle's sweetest
smile, and warmest praise and gratitude.

At the theatre the next evening the crowd was even greater than before,
and the crush unprecedented. The reputation of Captain Fracasse, the
valiant conqueror of the Duke of Vallombreuse; increased hourly, and
began to assume a chimerical and fabulous character. If the labours of
Hercules had been ascribed to him, there would have been some credulous
ones to believe the tale, and he was endowed by his admirers with the
prowess of a dozen good knights and brave, of the ancient times of
chivalrous deeds. Some of the young noblemen of the place talked of
seeking his acquaintance, and giving a grand banquet in his honour; more
than one fair lady was desperately in love with him, and had serious
thoughts of writing a billet-doux to tell him so. In short, he was
the fashion, and everybody swore by him. As for the hero of a this
commotion, he was greatly annoyed at being thus forcibly dragged