?--Is the Queen dead, or has she restored the colony to the United
Provinces?"

"Mam'selle Alide!" exclaimed, or rather groaned, Francois.

"The poor dumb beast!--" muttered Euclid.

The knives and the forks fell from the hands of Myndert and his guest, as
it were by a simultaneous paralysis. The latter involuntarily arose; while
the former planted his solid person still more firmly in its seat, like
one who was preparing to meet some severe and expected shock, with all the
physical resolution he could muster.

"--What of my niece!--What of my geldings?--You have called upon Dinah?"

"Sans doute, Monsieur!"

"--And you kept the keys of the stable?"

"I nebber let him go, at all!"

"--And you bade her call her mistress?"

"She no make answair, de tout."

"--The animals were fed and watered, as I ordered?"

"'Em nebber take he food, better!"

"--You entered the chamber of my niece, yourself, to awake her?"

"Monsieur a raison."

"What the devil has befallen the innocent?"

"He lose he stomach quite, and I t'ink it great time 'fore it ebber come
back."

"--Mister Francis, I desire to know the answer of Monsieur Barberie's
daughter."

"Mam'selle no repond, Monsieur; pas un syllabe!"

"--Drenchers and fleams! The beauty should have been drenched and
blooded--"

"He'm too late for dat, Masser, on honor."

"--The obstinate hussy! This comes of her Huguenot breed, a race that
would quit house and lands rather than change its place of worship!"

"La famille de Barberie est honorable, Monsieur mais le Grand Monarque fut
un pen trop exigeant. Vraiment, la dragonade etait mal avisee, pour faire
des chretiens!"

"Apoplexies and hurry! you should have sent for the farrier to administer
to the sufferer, thou black hound!"

"'Em go for a butcher, Masser, to save he skin; for he war' too soon
dead."

The word dead produced a sudden pause. The preceding dialogue had been so
rapid, and question and answer, no less than the ideas of the principal
speaker, had got so confused, that, for a moment, he was actually at a
loss to understand, whether the last great debt of nature had been paid by
la belle Barberie, or one of the Flemish geldings. Until now,
consternation, as well as the confusion of the interview, had constrained
the Patroon to be silent, but he profited by the breathing-time to
interpose.

"It is evident, Mr. Van Beverout," he said, speaking with a tremor in the
voice, which betrayed his own une