therewith a sealed letter in verse, containing an
affecting description of how Corydon had been cruelly torn by the lions
in endeavouring to bear away Sylvie from her cavern, how Sylvie had been
rent from him and lost, and how vainly he continued to bewail her, and
disregard the loving lament of Daphne, who had ever mourned and pined
for him as she kept her flock, made the rivulets, the brooks, the
mountains re-echo with her sighs and plaints, and had wandered through
the hills and valleys, gathering simples wherewith she had compounded a
balsam that might do away with the scars that the claws of the lions had
left, so that he might again appear with the glowing cheeks and radiant
locks that had excited the envy of the god of day.

Berenger burst out laughing over the practical part of this poetical
performance, and laughed the more at Philip's hurt, injured air at his
mirth. Philip, who would have been the first to see the absurdity in any
other Daphne, thought this a passing pleasant device, and considered it
very unkind in his brother not even to make experiment of the balsam
of simples, but to declare that he had much rather keep his scars for
Eustacie's sake than wear a smooth face to please Diane.

Still Berenger's natural courtesy stood in his way. He could not help
being respectful and attentive to the old Chevalier, when their terms
were, apparently at least, those of host and guest; and to a lady he
COULD not be rude and repellant, though he could be reserved. So, when
the kinsfolk met, no stranger would have discovered that one was a
prisoner and the others his captors.

One August day, when Madame de Selinville and her lady attendants were
supping at the castle at the early hour of six, a servant brought in
word that an Italian pedlar craved leave to display his wares. He
was welcome, both for need's sake and for amusement, and was readily
admitted. He was a handsome olive-faced Italian, and was followed by a
little boy with a skin of almost Moorish dye--and great was the display
at once made on the tables, of

'Lawn as white as driven snow,
Cyprus, black as e'er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as fragrant posies,
Masks for faces and for noses;'

and there was a good deal of the eager, desultory bargaining that
naturally took place where purchasing was an unusual excitement and
novelty, and was to form a whole evening's amusement. Berenger, while
supplying the defects of his scanty traveling w