d more under her foot.

"No, not a word! Get down!"

"Kiss me then, and good-by, cross thing that you are! Do not keep him
all day, or all the class besides myself will be jealous," replied
Louise, not offering to get down.

Angelique had no mind to allow her cavalier to be made a horse-block
of for anybody but herself. She jerked the bridle, and making her horse
suddenly pirouette, compelled Louise to jump down. The mischievous
little fairy turned her bright laughing eyes full upon La Force and
thanked him for his great courtesy, and with a significant gesture--as
much as to say he was at liberty now to escort Angelique, having done
penance for the same--rejoined her expectant companions, who had laughed
heartily at her manoeuvre.

"She paints!" was Louise's emphatic whisper to her companions, loud
enough to be heard by La Force, for whom the remark was partly intended.
"She paints! and I saw in her eyes that she has not slept all night! She
is in love! and I do believe it is true she is to marry the Intendant!"

This was delicious news to the class of Louises, who laughed out like a
chime of silver bells as they mischievously bade La Force and Angelique
bon voyage, and passed down the Place d'Armes in search of fresh
adventures to fill their budgets of fun--budgets which, on their return
to the Convent, they would open under the very noses of the good nuns
(who were not so blind as they seemed, however), and regale all their
companions with a spicy treat, in response to the universal question
ever put to all who had been out in the city, "What is the news?"

La Force, compliant as wax to every caprice of Angelique, was secretly
fuming at the trick played upon him by the Mischief of the Convent,--as
he called Louise Roy,--for which he resolved to be revenged, even if he
had to marry her. He and Angelique rode down the busy streets, receiving
salutations on every hand. In the great square of the market-place
Angelique pulled up in front of the Cathedral.

Why she stopped there would have puzzled herself to explain. It was not
to worship, not to repent of her heinous sin: she neither repented nor
desired to repent. But it seemed pleasant to play at repentance and put
on imaginary sackcloth.

Angelique's brief contact with the fresh, sunny nature of Louise Roy had
sensibly raised her spirits. It lifted the cloud from her brow, and
made her feel more like her former self. The story, told half in jest
by Louise, th