The sun of the summer noon shone through the vine and ivy shaded lattice, which was open, and the hum of the honey bee, with the sweet perfume of summer flowers, came in together on the soft and ambient air. Close at hand stood a _guéridon_, as the French name those little round tables which have three feet and one stem; and thereon were some phials, a vase of flowers, and a silver cup, which suggested to me, somehow, an idea of medicine. I passed a hand across my brow; it was painful to the touch, and throbbed. My eyes were hot and heavy; my hand looked pale, thin, and white--quite unlike what it usually was; hence I must have been long ill--but _where_? I strove to rise, that I might look forth from the window; but the effort was too much for me yet, and I sank back on my pillow. I seemed to have had strange dreams of late--dreams of my brief soldiering; of the burning of the shipping; the faces and voices of Charters, Kirkton, and others had come distinctly--especially poor Tom's (the "stick it minister," as the Greys named him), and the words of his song lingered in my ear:-- "Why, soldiers, why, Should we be melancholy, boys, Whose business 'tis to die? I had strange recollections of a warlike encounter with old Nathan Wylie in a wood in Brittany, and shooting him there, to save my cousin Aurora, whom he was tying to a tree. Then my wound from the charger's hoof, and the events subsequent thereto, gradually and coherently unfolded themselves before me. But where was I, and to whom indebted? Some one moved near me; I was certain there was the fall of a gentle foot--of one who stepped on tiptoe. "Who is there?" I asked in English, and then repeated the question in French. "Ah, you are awake--awake at last!" said a soft voice, in the latter tongue. "Who speaks?" "_C'est moi_--'tis only me," replied a girl whose face was familiar to me, as she drew back the curtain. "Angelique?" said I, with an effort. "Yes, Angelique; how droll--you know my name, monsieur!" It was the pretty Bretonne, with her scanty bodice and spotlessly white shirt; her black eyes beaming with kindness and pleasure; her dark hair surmounted by her high linen coif of a fashion old as the days of Charles VIII. "You know me--you are sensible at last," she continued; "ah, how happy mademoiselle will be to hear of this?" "Who is she?" "Ah, good heavens--is it possible--don't you know--Mademoiselle de Broglie, your protectress?" "And you?" "I have the honour to be her _soubrette_--her friend almost, for we are foster children. Every morning and every night I made a sign of the cross on your forehead with the holy water from my font, and I knew that it would cure you, even if everything else failed." "Cure me--I have, then, been ill?" "_O! mon Dieu_--so ill!" shrugging her white shoulders and clasping her little hands. "But say, Mademoiselle Angelique, pray where am I?" "In my room." "Yours?"