fellow lingering to sup and
sleep. She then retired to her cabinet to prepare her dispatches, which
were to include a letter to Lord Walwyn. Though a nominal friendship
subsisted between Elisabeth and the French court, the Huguenot chiefs
always maintained a correspondence with England, and there was little
danger but that the Duke de Quinet would be able to get a letter, sooner
or later, conveyed to any man of mark. In the course of her letter,
Madame de Quinet found it necessary to refer to Eustacie. She rang her
little silver handbell for the hall. There, of course, Master Page had
been engulfed in the _galimafre_, and not only forming one of the swarm
around the pedlar, but was actually aping courtly grimaces as he tried
a delicate lace ruffle on the hand of a silly little smirking maiden,
no older than himself! But this little episode was, like many others,
overlooked by Madame de Quinet, as her eye fell upon the little figure
of Rayonette standing on the table, with her mother and two or three
ladies besides coaxing her to open her mouth, and show the swollen gums
that had of late been troubling her, while the pedlar was evidently
expending his blandishments upon her.

The maitre d'hotel was the first to perceive his mistress, and, as he
approached, received a sharp rebuke from her for allowing the fellow to
produce his quack medicines; and, at the same time, she desired him
to request Madame Esperance to come to her immediately on business.
Eustacie, who always had a certain self-willed sense of opposition when
the Duchess showed herself peremptory towards her, at first began to
make answer that she would come as soon as her business was concluded;
but the steward made a gesture towards the great lady sailing up and
down as she paced the _dais_ in stately impatience. 'Good fellow,'
she said, 'I will return quickly, and see you again, though I am now
interrupted. Stay there, little one, with good Mademoiselle Perrot;
mother will soon be back.'

Rayonette, in her tooth-fretfulnes, was far from enduring to be forsaken
so near a strange man, and her cry made it necessary for Eustacie to
take her in arms, and carry her to the _dais_ where the Duchess was
waiting.

'So!' said the lady, 'I suspected that the fellow was a quack as well as
a cheat.'

'Madame,'said Eustacie, with spirit, 'he sold me unguents that greatly
relieved my father last spring.'

'And because rubbing relieved an old man's rheumatics, you woul