The word, so absolutely resembling Ninon, threw Madame de Villarceaux into a furious rage. Scarron vainly endeavoured to explain and justify himself. She would not listen. The answer, she said, was quite enough for her; and Scarron was dismissed. It was a cruel accident for him, crippled as he was, so utterly as not to be able to stir from his wheel-chair. Bodily “a wretched log,” as he called himself, intellectually more brilliant than ever, and in a human sense, ever the same kindly, generous epicurean philosopher as of old, “always” as he said, “unfortunate.” On the top of all his other troubles he had fallen in love. Alas! for the poor prisoner of that wheeled-chair, the helpless wreck of the ex-canon! Ninon found refuge in silence as she stood before him where he had been carried in from his coach. It was long since they had met, and her heart was full of pity. The object of his affection, Scarron went on to tell her, was one Françoise d’Aubigné, a native of Niort. “Ah, d’Aubigné,” interrupted Ninon at last. “A Protestant then?” A Calvinist by birth, went on Scarron, and reared in that teaching by an aunt who had adopted her on the death of her parents; but the aunt died, and then a lady, Madame de Neuillan, a friend of the Marquise de Villarceaux, had taken her in hand. It was a misuse of words to call it befriending. It was in this way Scarron had seen her, a charmingly pretty girl of about seventeen. This Countess de Neuillan was a gorgon of virtue and principle, and, as also a bigot of a Catholic, she had compelled Françoise to become one. In return for all her tender care, Madame de Neuillan imposed the most menial duties on the young girl, who was of angelic disposition as well as beautiful. Her father had been the son of the friend of Henri IV. More or less worthy as he might be represented—_de mortuis nil nisi bonum_—he had died in prison, guilty of no other crimes, perhaps, than being a Protestant; and so his two children had been left cast in indigence upon the world. The lot of Françoise in the house of Madame de Neuillan was deplorable, and Scarron, as well as some other friends, had advised her to leave her, and get her living by the work of her hands sooner than remain in such dependence; and for twelve months past she had lodged in a little street of a neighbouring faubourg, with her brother, a ne’er-do-well; but still her brother; and her goodness to him was the only fault Scarron had to find in the adorable Françoise. And Ninon’s generous heart overflowed with sympathy for the young girl, and she took her to her own home, and they were warm friends, living in the closest ties of affection; and ere long the sweet, modest, gentle girl repaid the kind friend’s goodness by winning her lover, Monsieur de Villarceaux, away from her, and Ninon, who was sincerely attached to him, felt the sting acutely. She taxed Françoise with the attempt, which was quite successful, and refused to listen to any denial or