The Baron Armand de Chatel-morant sat in his dim studio high up in the most seaward tower of the chateau of Chatel-morant. His hair and his beard were white, but his eyes were keen, and his cheeks as ruddy as the eyes and the cheeks of a young man. He had a furnace beside him, with implements of projection, crucibles, and powders. On the table were astrological instruments, and the magic crystal, which his Familiar had given him, and in which--only, however, when the Familiar pleased--the baron could read the future; but, for every reading of the future, the baron was a year older--the Familiar had a year of his life. The baron was clothed in a long furred robe, and he wore red shoes, with peaked toes, as long again as his feet. His face was moody, and clouds went driving along his brow. He took up his instruments, and laid them down, and opened a big book, full of spells and cantrips, and shut it; then he walked about the room; and then he stopped and blew a silver whistle. Very prompt at the sound came an old man--reverent and sorrowful looking--with a white wand; for he was the seneschal of the chateau of Chatel-morant. "Your niece," said the baron, "who comes hither from the town of Bordeaux to visit you, and whom I saw but yester even,--has she returned?" "She went this morning, monseigneur," said the seneschal; "she has preparations to make; for, God save the pretty child! she is to be married on the day of Blessed St. John." The baron frowned; for he was not an admirer of the saints, being quite, indeed, on the other side of the hedge. "Say the number of the day, and the name of the month," he replied, angrily; "and do not torment me with that shaveling jargon which they talk in the monastery of Andrew, whom they call St. Andrew at Bordeaux." The seneschal, who was accustomed to be bullied, particularly upon religious subjects, crossed himself behind his back; for he was a prudent man, and, owing to the absence of mind of the baron, who was always experimentalizing in the black art, managed, one way or other, to pick up so much as to make his place a tolerably profitable one. "Married!" said the baron; "and to whom?" "Just to honest and brave Jacques Fort--the stoutest mariner who sails out of the Garonne. He has got a ship of his own, now--the _Sainte Vierge_; and to-day he sails upon his first voyage, as far as Bayonne." "He sails to-day--so; and the maiden's name--your niece's name--what is that?" "Toinette, so please you, sir." "You may go." And go the seneschal did, wondering very much at the uncommon interest his master seemed to be taking in vulgar, sublunary things.