quality in
her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke
that I started when she had finished. There was much more I would have
known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave
her pain. At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before.
She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions
of the hopes I had dared to entertain, left me picturing sadly the
existence of which she had spoken. Why had she told me of it? Perchance
she had thought to do me a kindness!

She came back to me--I had not thought she would. She sat down with her
embroidery in her lap, and for some moments busied herself with it in
silence. Then she said, without looking up:--

"I do not know why I have tired you with this, why I have saddened
myself. It is past and gone."

"I was not tired, Madame. It is very difficult to live in the present
when the past has been so brilliant," I answered.

"So brilliant!" She sighed. "So thoughtless,--I think that is the
sharpest regret." I watched her fingers as they stitched, wondering how
they could work so rapidly. At last she said in a low voice, "Antoinette
and Mr. Temple have told me something of your life, Mr. Ritchie."

I laughed.

"It has been very humble," I replied.

"What I heard was--interesting to me," she said, turning over her frame.
"Will you not tell me something of it?"

"Gladly, Madame, if that is the case," I answered.

"Well, then," she said, "why don't you?"

"I do not know which part you would like, Madame. Shall I tell you about
Colonel Clark? I do not know when to begin--"

She dropped her sewing in her lap and looked up at me quickly.

"I told you that you were a strange man," she said. "I almost lose
patience with you. No, don't tell me about Colonel Clark--at least not
until you come to him. Begin at the beginning, at the cabin in the
mountains."

"You want the whole of it!" I exclaimed.

She picked up her embroidery again and bent over it with a smile.

"Yes, I want the whole of it."

So I began at the cabin in the mountains. I cannot say that I ever
forgot she was listening, but I lost myself in the narrative. It
presented to me, for the first time, many aspects that I had not thought
of. For instance, that I should be here now in Louisiana telling it to
one who had been the companion and friend of the Queen of France. Once
in a while the Vicomtesse would look up at me swiftly, whe