'I dare not be more, madam,' I sighed, with a strange mixture of fear, admiration, and perplexity; 'your beauty awes me.' 'You will become used to it in time; alas! it is the fate of beauty. Come hither,' said she, motioning me to a seat beside her on the down fauteuil, and smiling brilliantly, with a gratification that she cared not to conceal. 'Look at these brilliants,' she added, opening a scarlet case; 'they were brought to me this morning.' 'From Paris?' 'Jealous again! From the Louvre, by M. Boizenval.' 'The King's valet?' 'Yes; and he announced that the King might visit me to-day, hence this collation, towards which your eyes wander so suspiciously. Oh, poor jealous M. Arthur; but what think you of this necklace?' 'It would grace the neck of Anne of Austria; but you, madame, require no aid from ornament.' 'Little fellow, you flatter me already! I have promised M. Poussin, the painter, a sitting to-day; do you think that with these jewels and with this dress I shall make a good picture?' 'Madame, you would make a divine picture in any dress,' said I, carried away by the impulse of the moment. 'Mon Dieu, my boy, what a lover you will make! Who among the Garde du Corps Ecossais will be like you?' As I had now come to push my fortune in France and in Paris, that place of vague and doubtful morality, I had--fortunately for myself--at memory all the dialogues, proverbs, and 'metrical graces' of the _French Schoole Maister_, published at Edinburgh in 1632; and drew my ideas of continental morals from that small thick volume the _Histoire de Palmerin d'Olive, Fils du Roy Florendos_, translated from Castilian into French by Jean Maugin, _Paris, par Galliot du Pre_, 1573: thus I was never without a ready answer whenever the Countess threw down the glove. Moreover, I was young, and knew little of the world; thus her great beauty and brilliance of manner really dazzled me; and when I bent my eyes upon her, I am ashamed to say, that it was, perhaps, with more of an imploring expression than ever filled them when I attempted to pray; but I soon forgot to do even that in Paris. After some conversation of a half-bantering and half-complimentary nature, with a strong tinge of love-making running through it all, I begged that she would give me a little relic to wear, as a remembrance of one who had been so kind to me. Taking from the drawer of a buhl table a charming miniature of herself, set in gold, she threw its ribbon round my neck, saying in a whisper close to my ear, very close indeed,-- 'Wear this for my sake--it is the work of Nicholas Poussin, and the gift of a king. See his initial L, and a crown in diamonds, are on the back. It may prove a talisman should you ever get into trouble; for, alas! the court of France is surrounded by pitfalls and snares, by lures and assassinations.' 'Ah, madame, that I might always be near you.' 'Why that wish?'