"Thou art a good boy," said his father, laying his hand on his head, "thou art a good boy." But still, as the Woodman spoke, his mind seemed occupied by some anxiety, for again he looked up the road and listened. "There are strange faces in the forest," said Philip, not exactly soliloquizing, for his son was present, but certainly speaking more to himself than to the boy. "There are strange faces in the forest, and I fear me some ill deed is to be done. But here they come, thank God!--No! what is this?" As he spoke, there appeared, just where the road turned into the wood, a sort of procession, which would have puzzled any one of later days, more than it did the Woodman. It consisted of four men on horseback, and four on foot, escorting a vehicle, the most elegant and tasteful that the age produced. The people of that day had doubtless very enlarged notions, and certainly the carriage I speak of would have contained any three of modern construction (always excepting that in which his most gracious Majesty the King of England appears on state occasions, and also that of the Lord Mayor of London City.) Indeed the one in question was more like a state carriage than any other; broad at the top, low in the axle, all covered over with painting and gilding, with long wooden shafts for the horses, and green taffeta curtains to the windows: and in this guise it came on, swaying and swaggering about over the ruts in the road, not unlike the bloated Dutch pug of some over-indulgent dame, waddling slowly on, with its legs far apart, and its belly almost trailing on the ground. When the carriage arrived at the _abreuvoir_, by the side of which Philip had placed himself, the footmen took the bridles from the horses' mouths to give them drink, and a small white hand, from within, drew back the taffeta curtain, displaying to the Woodman one of the loveliest faces he had ever beheld. The lady looked round for a moment at the forest scene, in the midst of whose wild ruggedness they stood, and then raised her eyes towards the sky, letting them roam over the clear deepening expanse of blue, as if to satisfy herself how much daylight still remained for their journey. "How far is it to St. Germain, good friend?" said she, addressing the Woodman, as she finished her contemplations; and her voice sounded to Philip like the warble of a bird, notwithstanding a slight peculiarity of intonation, which more refined ears would instantly have decided as the accent of Roussillon, or some adjacent province: the lengthening of the _i_, and the swelling roundness of the Spanish _u_, sounding very differently from the sharp precision peculiar to the Parisian pronunciation. "I wish, Pauline, that you would get over that bad habit of softening all your syllables," said an old lady who sat beside her in the carriage. "Your French is scarcely comprehensible."