for me, I see, so I must leave you, Chevalier."

"Do not depart just now, Angelique! Wait until breakfast, which will be
prepared for the latest guests."

"Thanks, Chevalier," said she, "I cannot wait. It has been a gay and
delightful ball--to them who enjoyed it."

"Among whom you were one, I hope," replied Bigot.

"Yes, I only wanted one thing to be perfectly happy, and that I could
not get, so I must console myself," said she, with an air of mock
resignation.

Bigot looked at her and laughed, but he would not ask what it was she
lacked. He did not want a scene, and feared to excite her wrath by
mention again of the lettre de cachet.

"Let me accompany you to the carriage, Angelique," said he, handing her
cloak and assisting her to put it on.

"Willingly, Chevalier," replied she coquettishly, "but the Chevalier
de Pean will accompany me to the door of the dressing-room. I promised
him." She had not, but she beckoned with her finger to him. She had
a last injunction for De Pean which she cared not that the Intendant
should hear.

De Pean was reconciled by this manoevre; he came, and Angelique and
he tripped off together. "Mind, De Pean, what I asked you about Le
Gardeur!" said she in an emphatic whisper.

"I will not forget," replied he, with a twinge of jealousy. "Le Gardeur
shall come back in a few days or De Pean has lost his influence and
cunning."

Angelique gave him a sharp glance of approval, but made no further
remark. A crowd of voluble ladies were all telling over the incidents
of the ball, as exciting as any incidents of flood and field, while they
arranged themselves for departure.

The ball was fast thinning out. The fair daughters of Quebec, with
disordered hair and drooping wreaths, loose sandals, and dresses looped
and pinned to hide chance rents or other accidents of a long night's
dancing, were retiring to their rooms, or issuing from them hooded and
mantled, attended by obsequious cavaliers to accompany them home.

The musicians, tired out and half asleep, drew their bows slowly across
their violins; the very music was steeped in weariness. The lamps grew
dim in the rays of morning, which struggled through the high windows,
while, mingling with the last strains of good-night and bon repos, came
a noise of wheels and the loud shouts of valets and coachmen out in the
fresh air, who crowded round the doors of the Palace to convey home
the gay revellers who had that night graced the splen