replied; but no sooner was the messenger gone than Berenger said
smilingly, 'That was a love potion, Phil.'

'And you drank it!' cried Philip, in horror.

'I did not think of it till I saw how the boy's eyes were gazing
curiously at me as I swallowed it. You look at me as curiously, Phil.
Are you expecting it to work? Shall I be at the fair lady's feet next
time we meet?'

'How can you defy it, Berry?'

'Nay, Phil; holy wedded love is not to be dispelled by a mountebank's
decoction.'

'But suppose it were poisonous, Berry, what can be done?' cried Philip,
starting up in dismay.

'Then you would go home, Phil, and this would be over. But'--seeing his
brother's terror--'there is no fear of that. She is not like to wish to
poison me.'

And the potion proved equally ineffective on mind and body, as indeed
did all the manipulations exercised upon a little waxen image that was
supposed to represent M. le Baron. Another figure was offered to Diane,
in feminine form, with black beads for eyes and a black plaster for
hair, which, when stuck full of pins and roasted before the fire, was to
cause Eustacie to peak and pine correspondingly. But from this measure
Diane shrank. If aught was done against her rival it must be by her
father and brother, not by herself; and she would not feel herself
directly injuring her little cousin, nor sinking herself below him whom
she loved. Once his wife, she would be good for ever, held up by his
strength.

Meantime Berenger had received a greater shock than she or her father
understood in the looking over of some of the family parchments kept in
store at the castle. The Chevalier, in showing them to him, had chiefly
desired to glorify the family by demonstrating how its honours had been
won, but Berenger was startled at finding that Nid-de-Merle had been, as
it appeared to him, arbitrarily and unjustly declared to be forfeited by
the Sieur de Bellaise, who had been thrown into prison by Louis XI. for
some demonstration in favour of the poor Duke de Berri, and granted
to the favourite Ribaumont. The original grant was there, and to his
surprise he found it was to male heirs--the male heirs alone of the
direct line of the Ribaumont--to whom the grant was made. How, then,
came it to Eustacie? The disposal had, with almost equal injustice, been
changed by King Henry II. and the late Count de Ribaumont in favour of
the little daughter whose union with the heir of the elder line was to
co