u my secret in return
for yours. So long as I can be by Henri's side I envy no one--ask nothing
better of fortune."

Flora smiled knowingly. "Do you call that a secret? I have known that
ever since I first saw you look at him."

Gabrielle looked pained. "Am I so immodest a minion?"

Flora protested: "No, no. But your eyes are traitors and tell me tales."

"I must be wary," Gabrielle said, "that they tell no tales to--to
others."

Flora shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Lovers are droll. A maid may love a
man, and a man may love a maid, and neither know that the other is sick
of the same pip, poor fowls."

"What do you mean, witch?" Gabrielle questioned.

Flora twirled a pirouette before she replied: "Nothing--less than
nothing. I dance here by-and-by to please a grandee. Will you peep
through your lattice?"

"Perhaps," Gabrielle answered, cautiously. Then she gave a little start.
"Some one is coming," she said, and, indeed, some one was coming. A man
had just mounted the bridge from the Neuilly road and stood there for an
instant surveying the two girls. He was a modish young gentleman, very
splendidly attired, who carried himself with a dainty insolence, and he
now came slowly towards the girls with an amiable salutation.

"Exquisite ladies," he said, "I give you good-day."

At the sound of his voice and the sight of his figure Gabrielle had
disappeared into the Inn as quickly as ever rabbit disappeared into its
hole. Flora had no less nimbly run down to the caravan; but when she
reached it she paused on the first step, attracted by the appearance of
the handsomely dressed young gentleman, who appealed to her earnestly:
"Why do you scatter so rashly? I should be delighted to talk with you."

Flora mocked him: "Perhaps we do not want to talk to you."

The new-comer would not admit the possibility. "Impossible," he
protested. "Let me present myself. I am the Marquis de Chavernay. I am
very diverting. I can make love to more ladies at the same time than any
gentleman of my age at court."

Flora laughed. "Amiable accomplishment," she said, mockingly; but while
she mocked her quick eyes were carefully noting every particular of the
stranger's appearance, from the exquisite laces at his throat and wrists
to the jewels on his fingers, and finding all very much to her taste, and
the appropriate adornments for a young gentleman of so gallant a carriage
and so pleasantly impertinent a face. She had never cast her ey