The old lady politely asked pardon of me for her curiosity, and was proceeding to detail some of her own early experiences and to rehearse the number of Counts, Abbés, Chevaliers, and Grand Crosses of St. Louis, who had sighed and died for her, when a servant suddenly announced the Chevalier de Boisguiller; then we heard the clank of a sabre with the jingle of spurs, and that gay hussar in his brilliant uniform, all gold braid and bell buttons, with his fur cap in one hand, and the other caressing his dearly cherished moustache, entered, bowing and smiling to us all. He was _en route_, he said, with his troop, from Rennes to the coast, and as he would pass near St. Malo, he had galloped on in front to pay his respects at the chateau, and obtain the honour of conveying any message for his father, the commandant, from the Countess Ninon--one who far excelled the Ninon of the preceding age. There was mischief lurking in the handsome fellow's eyes as he said all this. He soon detected an impudent smile on the lips of Angelique, and, ere long, I found him eyeing me sharply through his glass, and I felt a horrible dread lest _he_ should recognise me, or discover my sex. I was certain the crisis had come, when the hussar captain said-- "By-the-by, my dear mademoiselle, what did you make of the Englishman, whose life you saved from my fellows, when we were last here?" "The young man who saved my life from Hautois?" asked Jacqueline, slowly. "Yes, 'twas turn about, it would seem." "Monsieur le Chevalier, he was taken to St. Malo," said Angelique, who came to the rescue of her mistress. "And since then, my girl?" "We have heard no more of him." "'Tis well," said the chevalier, who, as his eye chanced again to fall on me, caused my heart to swell alternately with alarm and anger. "Those English folks are about to pay us a visit again." "Again--_O mon Dieu!_" we all exclaimed together. "More shipping and troops are being concentrated at their rendezvous of both Portsmouth and Plymouth," said he, while playing with the gold tassels of the cord which held the furred pelisse on his left shoulder; "but my father is ready for them at St. Malo, and Brest and Cherbourg are in excellent hands." Though reflection or thought evidently but seldom troubled our hussar, he now proceeded to make some remarks with which I, mentally, coincided. "_Parbleu!_ what did the King of Great Britain propose to gain by invading France with a force of about twelve thousand men? He takes a town or so, which he cannot keep--he effects a landing under great difficulties on our most dangerous coast, and lands only to embark again." "The British did not invade France with the hope of conquest," said Jacqueline; "but to harass us and destroy our arsenals it would appear."