Already collected on the steps of the Hôtel de Guise, at the news that he was returning from the Louvre, was a group of the brightest, the bravest, the most talented, and the most beautiful of the French nobility,--Madame de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de St. Beuve, the Chevalier d'Aumale, Brissac, and a thousand others. The servants and attendants of his household in gorgeous dresses kept back the crowd with courteous words and kindly gestures; and when he reached the steps that led to the high doorway of the porter's lodge, on the right of the porte cochère, he ascended a little way amongst his gratulating friends, and then turned and bowed repeatedly to the people, pointing out here and there some of the most popular of the citizens and magistrates, and whispering a word to the nearest attendant, who instantly made his way through the crowd to the spot where the personage designated stood, and in his master's name requested that he would come in and take some refreshment. When this was over, he again bowed and retired; and while the multitude separated, he walked on into his lordly halls with a number of persons clinging round him, whom he had not seen for months--for months which to him had been full of activity, thought, care, and peril, and to them of anxiety for the head of their race. As he passed along, however, to a chamber where the dinner which had been prepared for him had remained untouched for many an hour, his eye fell upon a boy dressed in the habit of one of his own pages; and taking suddenly a step forward, he called the boy apart into a window, demanding eagerly, "Well, have you found your master?" "I have, your Highness," replied the boy, "and have found means to give him the letter?" "What!" exclaimed the Duke, "outwitted Villequier, and Pisani, and all! The wit of a page against that of a politician for a thousand crowns!" "I dressed myself as a girl, your Highness," replied the boy, "and got into the convent, and then through a gate into what is called the rector's court, where Doctor Botholph and the Curé live, and where men are admitted, and women not shut out when they like to go in; and I got talking to the old verger of the church by the side, and he called me a pretty little fool, and said he dared to say I would soon be among the penitents within there; and with that I got him to tell me every thing, and the whole story of the young Count being brought there at night, and shut up in what are called the rector's apartments." As he spoke, one or two of the higher class of those whom the Duke had selected from the crowd below, and who felt themselves privileged to present themselves in his private apartments, entered the hall, and instantly caught his eye.