The page smiled, and with the smile his whole countenance grew handsome. In repose, his face was simply that of a well-looking youth enough, with a bold, saucy expression and hardy sunburned features; but when he smiled, a physiognomist watching the change would have pronounced, “That boy _must_ be like his mother, and his mother _must_ have been beautiful!” “Cerise,” repeated the lad. “What a pretty name! Mine is not a pretty name. Boys don’t have pretty names. My name’s George—George Hamilton. You mustn’t call me Hamilton. I am never called anything but George at Court. I’m not big enough to be a soldier yet, but I am page to _Louis le Grand_!” The child opened her eyes very wide, and stared over her new friend’s head at a gentleman who was listening attentively to their conversation, with his hat in his hand, and an expression of considerable amusement pervading his old, worn, melancholy face. This gentleman had stolen round the corner of the alley, treading softly on the turf, and might have been watching the children for some minutes unperceived. He was a small, shrunken, but well-made person, with a symmetrical leg and foot, the arched instep of the latter increased by the high heels of his diamond-buckled shoes. His dress in those days of splendour was plain almost to affectation; it consisted of a full-skirted, light-brown coat, ornamented only with a few gold buttons; breeches of the same colour, and a red satin waistcoat embroidered at the edges, the whole suit relieved by the _cordon bleu_ which was worn outside. The hat he dangled in his pale, thin, unringed hand was trimmed with Spanish point, and had a plume of white feathers. His face was long, and bore a solemn, saddened expression, the more remarkable for the rapidity with which, as at present, it succeeded a transient gleam of mirth. Notwithstanding all its advantages of dress and manner, notwithstanding jewelled buckles, and point lace, and full flowing periwig, the figure now standing over the two children, in sad contrast to their rich flow of youth and health, was that of a worn-out, decrepid old man, fast approaching, though not yet actually touching, the brink of his grave. The smile, however, came over his wrinkled face once more as the child looked shyly up, gathering her daisy-chain distrustfully into her lap. Then he stooped to stroke her brown curls with his white wasted hand. “Your name is Thérèse,” said he gravely. “Mamma calls you Cerise, because you are such a round, ruddy little thing. Mamma is waiting in the painted saloon for the king’s dinner. You may look at him eating it, if your _bonne_ takes you home past the square table in the middle window opposite the Great Fountain. She is to come for you in a quarter of an hour. You see I know all about it, little one.”