ain at once replied,
for he had looked into hat fashions lately.

"Please describe it to me after dinner. All the world is speaking of
it."

"To the devil with coiffures!" Grancey whispered to the Canoness, and
struck up a paean of praise on the lean hound Arethuse who led the hunt
the previous day.

"Yes, but I believe that dog is possessed of the devil," asserted
d'Estaing. "Did you notice her eyes flash when she sprang down the
hideous glen where we nearly broke our necks? The foresters once told me
about that place."

"What about it?"

"It is the glen of the Great Hunter. The courtiers of King Henry IV were
hunting in that part of the forest one day, when they heard a tremendous
horn, saw the stag turn, and a strange pack of dogs in full chase fly
after it across their path; and with the hounds they saw a hunter,
riding on a great black horse. They stopped and shouted at the intruder,
and searched about for him, when a gigantic savage of a frightful
countenance sprang above the bushes and said in a voice which froze
their blood: 'DO YOU HEAR ME?' Since then he has been seen many times by
the foresters and others."

"I do not like the subject," shuddered Mademoiselle de Richeval,
crossing herself.

"Pardon me," d'Estaing gravely said, bowing.

"Tell me something about those men ascending into the clouds," spoke the
silvery voice of the young Baroness, addressing Germain.

He gladly told her all he knew of the late ascent, at which he had been
present in Bordeaux; how Montgolfier and his brother made the balloon;
how he stood by their enclosure and saw them fill the balloon with
inflammable gas; how the brave four got into the car and everybody
prophesied their destruction; and of the speechless thrill with which he
saw at last the strange machine dart upwards and carry them swiftly
higher and higher, until it was but a speck drifting across the clouds.

The vividness of his account pleased her, and at the end she was
permitting him to drink her health, when they were interrupted by an
exclamation, and saw de Grancey pointing to the table. A surprise of an
ingenious nature was occurring before their eyes. The artificial hoar
frost which gave such beauty to the miniature landscape was slowly
melting with the heat of the room, and during the process the guests saw
the thawing of the river, the budding of the trees, and the blossoming
of the various flowers take place, as spring succeeded winter. A little
c