s Madame did not
openly exhibit any approbation, no one felt authorized to applaud, not
even Monsieur, who secretly thought that Saint-Aignan dwelt too much
upon the portraits of the shepherdesses, and had somewhat slightingly
passed over the portraits of the shepherds. The whole assembly seemed
suddenly chilled. Saint-Aignan, who had exhausted his rhetorical skill
and his palette of artistic tints in sketching the portrait of Galatea,
and who, after the favor with which his other descriptions had been
received, already imagined he could hear the loudest applause allotted
to this last one, was himself more disappointed than the king and the
rest of the company. A moment's silence followed, which was at last
broken by Madame.

"Well, sir," she inquired, "What is your majesty's opinion of these
three portraits?"

The king, who wished to relieve Saint-Aignan's embarrassment without
compromising himself, replied, "Why, Amaryllis, in my opinion, is
beautiful."

"For my part," said Monsieur, "I prefer Phyllis; she is a capital girl,
or rather a good-sort-of-fellow of a nymph."

A gentle laugh followed, and this time the looks were so direct, that
Montalais felt herself blushing almost scarlet.

"Well," resumed Madame, "what were those shepherdesses saying to each
other?"

Saint-Aignan, however, whose vanity had been wounded, did not feel
himself in a position to sustain an attack of new and refreshed troops,
and merely said, "Madame, the shepherdesses were confiding to one
another their little preferences."

"Nay, nay! Monsieur de Saint-Aignan, you are a perfect stream of
pastoral poesy," said Madame, with an amiable smile, which somewhat
comforted the narrator.

"They confessed that love is a mighty peril, but that the absence of
love is the heart's sentence of death."

"What was the conclusion they came to?" inquired Madame.

"They came to the conclusion that love was necessary."

"Very good! Did they lay down any conditions?"

"That of choice, simply," said Saint-Aignan. "I ought even to
add,--remember it is the Dryad who is speaking,--that one of the
shepherdesses, Amaryllis, I believe, was completely opposed to the
necessity of loving, and yet she did not positively deny that she had
allowed the image of a certain shepherd to take refuge in her heart."

"Was it Amyntas or Tyrcis?"

"Amyntas, Madame," said Saint-Aignan, modestly. "But Galatea, the gentle
and soft-eyed Galatea, immediately replied, that