The Countess Amabil, walking with Sir Walter Langton, glanced coquettishly at her cavalier and smiled. “It is idyllic!” she said;--“A sort of Arcadia without Corydon or Phyllis! Do all the inhabitants go to sleep or disappear in the daytime, I wonder?” “Not all, I imagine,” replied Sir Walter; “For here comes one, though, judging from the slowness of his walk, he is in no haste to welcome his King!” The personage he spoke of was indeed approaching, and all the members of the Royal party watched his advance with considerable curiosity. He was tall and upright in bearing, but as he came nearer he was seen to be a man of great age, with a countenance on which sorrow and suffering had left their indelible traces. There were furrows on that face which tears had hollowed out for their swifter flowing, and the high intellectual brow bore lines and wrinkles of anxiety and pain, which were the soul’s pen-marks of a tragic history. He was attired in simple fisherman’s garb of rough blue homespun, and when he was within a few paces of the King, he raised his cap from his curly silver hair with an old-world grace and deferential courtesy. Sir Roger de Launay went forward to meet him and to explain the situation. “His Majesty the King,” he said, “has wished to make a surprise visit to his people of The Islands,--and he is here in person with the Queen. Can you oblige him with an escort to the principal places of interest?” The old man looked at him with a touch of amusement and derision. “There are no places here of interest to a King,” he said; “Unless a poor man’s house may serve for his curious comment! I am not his Majesty’s subject--but I live under his protection and his laws,--and I am willing to offer him a welcome, since there is no one else to do so!” He spoke with a refined and cultured accent, and in his look and bearing evinced the breeding of a gentleman. “And your name?” asked Sir Roger courteously. “My name is Réné Ronsard,” he replied. “I was shipwrecked on this coast years ago. Finding myself cast here by the will of God, here I have remained!” As he said this, Sir Roger remembered what he had casually heard at times about the ‘life-philosopher’ who had built for himself a dwelling on The Islands out of the timbers of wrecked vessels. This must surely be the man! Delighted at having thus come upon the very person most likely to provide some sort of diversion for their Majesties, and requesting Ronsard to wait at a distance for a moment, he hastened back to the King and explained the position. Whereupon the monarch at once advanced with alacrity, and as he approached the venerable personage who had offered him the only hospitality he was likely to receive in this part of his realm, he extended his hand with a frank and kindly cordiality. Réné Ronsard accepted it with a slight but not over-obsequious salutation.