respecting breakfast, Monsieur stretched himself upon
a _chaise longue_, and was soon as fast asleep as if it had been eleven
o'clock at night.

The eight guards, who concluded their service for the day was over, laid
themselves down very comfortably in the sun upon some stone benches;
the grooms disappeared with their horses into the stables, and, with the
exception of a few joyous birds, startling each other with their sharp
chirping in the tufted shrubberies, it might have been thought that the
whole castle was as soundly asleep as Monsieur was.

All at once, in the midst of this delicious silence, there resounded
a clear ringing laugh, which caused several of the halberdiers in the
enjoyment of their _siesta_ to open at least one eye.

This burst of laughter proceeded from a window of the castle, visited
at this moment by the sun, that embraced it in one of those large
angles which the profiles of the chimneys mark out upon the walls before
mid-day.

The little balcony of wrought iron which advanced in front of this
window was furnished with a pot of red gilliflowers, another pot of
primroses, and an early rose-tree, the foliage of which, beautifully
green, was variegated with numerous red specks announcing future roses.

In the chamber lighted by this window, was a square table, covered with
an old large-flowered Haarlem tapestry; in the center of this table
was a long-necked stone bottle, in which were irises and lilies of the
valley; at each end of this table was a young girl.

The position of these two young people was singular; they might have
been taken for two boarders escaped from a convent. One of them, with
both elbows on the table, and a pen in her hand, was tracing characters
upon a sheet of fine Dutch paper; the other, kneeling upon a chair,
which allowed her to advance her head and bust over the back of it to
the middle of the table, was watching her companion as she wrote, or
rather hesitated to write.

Thence the thousand cries, the thousand railleries, the thousand laughs,
one of which, more brilliant than the rest, had startled the birds in
the gardens, and disturbed the slumbers of Monsieur's guards.

We are taking portraits now; we shall be allowed, therefore, we hope, to
sketch the two last of this chapter.

The one who was leaning in the chair--that is to say, the joyous,
laughing one--was a beautiful girl of from eighteen to twenty, with
brown complexion and brown hair, splendid, fro