mother-in-law. For the rest, they are not mine, but hers; her father
lent them to me, not gave: so she wears them thus; and anything but HER
life should go rather than THEY should.'

'_Hein_, a fine guardian for them!' was all the Duchess said in answer.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE ITALIAN PEDLAR

This caitiff monk for gold did swear,
That by his drugs my rival fair
A saint in heaven should be.--SCOTT

A grand cavalcade bore the house of Quinet from Montauban--coaches,
wagons, outriders, gendarmes--it was a perfect court progress, and so
low and cumbrous that it was a whole week in reaching a grand old castle
standing on a hill-side among chestnut woods, with an avenue a mile long
leading up to it; and battlemented towers fit to stand a siege.

Eustacie was ranked among the Duchess's gentlewomen. She was so far
acknowledged as a lady of birth, that she was usually called Madame
Esperance; and though no one was supposed to doubt her being Theodore
Gardon's widow, she was regarded as being a person of rank who had made
a misalliance by marrying him. This Madame de Quinet had allowed the
household to infer, thinking that the whole bearing of her guest was
too unlike that of a Paris _bourgeoise_ not to excite suspicion, but
she deemed it wiser to refrain from treating her with either intimacy or
distinction that might excite jealousy or suspicion. Even as it was,
the consciousness of a secret, or the remnants of Montauban gossip,
prevented any familiarity between Eustacie and the good ladies who
surrounded her; they were very civil to each other, but their only
connecting link was the delight that every one took in petting
pretty little Rayonette, and the wonder that was made of her signs of
intelligence and attempts at talking. Even when she toddled fearlessly
up to the stately Duchess on her canopied throne, and held out her
entreating hands, and lisped the word '_nontre_,' Madame would pause in
her avocations, take her on her knee, and display that wonderful
gold and enamel creature which cried tic-tic, and still remained
an unapproachable mystery to M. le Marquis and M. le Vicomte, her
grandsons.

Pale, formal stiff boys they looked, twelve and ten years old, and under
the dominion of a very learned tutor, who taught them Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, alternately with an equally precise, stiff old esquire, who
trained them in martial exercises, which seemed to be as much matters of
rote with t