‘Well, Mr. O’Leary, I hope you know where we are,’ said she, drying her eyes, where the sparkling drops of mirth were standing, ‘for I assure you I don’t.’ ‘Oh, perfectly,’ replied I, as my eye caught a board nailed against a tree, on which some very ill-painted letters announced ‘La route de Bouvigne’--‘we are on the highroad to Bouvigne, wherever that may be.’ ‘Bouvigne!’ exclaimed she, in an accent of some alarm; ‘why, it’s five leagues from the château! I travelled there once by the highroad. How are we ever to get back?’ That was the very question I was then canvassing in my own mind, without a thought of how it was to be solved. However, I answered with an easy indifference, ‘Oh, nothing easier; we ‘ll take a _calèche_ at Bouvigne.’ ‘But they ‘ve none.’ ‘Well, then, fresh horses.’ ‘There’s not a horse in the place; it’s a little village near the Meuse, surrounded with tall granite rocks, and only remarkable for its ruined castle, the ancient schloss of Philip de Bouvigne.’ ‘How interesting!’ said I, delighted to catch at anything which should give the conversation a turn; ‘and who was Philip de Bouvigne?’ ‘Philip,’ said the lady, ‘was the second or third count, I forget which, of the name. The chronicles say that he was the handsomest and most accomplished youth of the time. Nowhere could he meet his equal at joust or tournament; while his skill in arms was the least of his gifts--he was a poet and a musician. In fact, if you were only to believe his historians, he was the most dangerous person for the young ladies of those days to meet with. Not that he ran away with them, _sur la grande route_.’ As she said this, a burst of laughing stopped her; and it was one I could really forgive, though myself the object of it. ‘However,’ resumed she, ‘I believe he was just as bad. Well, to pursue my story, when Philip was but eighteen, it chanced that a party of warriors bound for the Holy Land came past the Castle of Bouvigne, and of course passed the night there. From them, many of whom had already been in Palestine, Philip heard the wondrous stories the crusaders ever brought back of combats and encounters, of the fearful engagements with the infidels and the glorious victories of the Cross. And at length, so excited did his mind become by the narrations, that he resolved on the spot to set out for the Holy Land, and see with his own eyes the wonderful things they had been telling him.