Mlle. de Bergerac leaned against the parapet, and with a meditative droop of the head looked down the little glen toward the plain and the highway. "For myself," she said, "I can imagine very charming things of life in this castle of Fossy." "For yourself, very likely." "Fancy the great moat below filled with water and sheeted with lilies, and the drawbridge lowered, and a company of knights riding into the gates. Within, in one of those vaulted, quaintly timbered rooms, the châtelaine stands ready to receive them, with her women, her chaplain, her physician, and her little page. They come clanking up the staircase, with ringing swords, sweeping the ground with their plumes. They are all brave and splendid and fierce, but one of them far more than the rest. They each bend a knee to the lady--" "But he bends two," cried Coquelin. "They wander apart into one of those deep embrasures and spin the threads of perfect love. Ah, I could fancy a sweet life, in those days, mademoiselle, if I could only fancy myself a knight!" "And you can't," said the young girl, gravely, looking at him. "It's an idle game; it's not worth trying." "Apparently then, you're a cynic; you have an equally small opinion of the past and the present." "No; you do me injustice." "But you say that life is hard." "I speak not for myself, but for others; for my brothers and sisters and kinsmen in all degrees; for the great mass of petits gens of my own class." "Dear me, M. Coquelin, while you're about it, you can speak for others still; for poor portionless girls, for instance." "Are they very much to be pitied?" Mlle. de Bergerac was silent. "After all," she resumed, "they oughtn't to complain." "Not when they have a great name and beauty," said Coquelin. "O heaven!" said the young girl, impatiently, and turned away. Coquelin stood watching her, his brow contracted, his lips parted. Presently, she came back. "Perhaps you think," she said, "that I care for my name,--my great name, as you call it." "Assuredly, I do." She stood looking at him, blushing a little and frowning. As he said these words, she gave an impatient toss of the head and turned away again. In her hand she carried an ornamented fan, an antiquated and sadly dilapidated instrument. She suddenly raised it above her head, swung it a moment, and threw it far across the parapet. "There goes the name of Bergerac!" she said; and sweeping round, made the young man a very low courtesy. There was in the whole action a certain passionate freedom which set poor Coquelin's heart a-throbbing. "To have a good name, mademoiselle," he said, "and to be indifferent to it, is the sign of a noble mind." (In parenthesis, I may say that I think he was quite wrong.) "It's quite as noble, monsieur," returned my aunt, "to have a small name and not to blush for it." With these words I fancy they felt as if they had said enough; the conversation was growing rather too pointed.