I called Claude's wife up and delivered the girl to her keeping, then turned to look out into the street. There were now drawn up in front of the door four sturdy equerries, well mounted, and leading two excellent nags, which I took to be those Jerome had provided for our own use. Jerome obliged me once more to dress with exceeding care, but I fretted much for my own easy garments which permitted a man to use his limbs with the freedom God had given them. Verily there would be no regret when all this frippery could be cast aside, and by my faith, it was much simpler to lay it off than to array one's self in. I never did learn all the eccentricities of that remarkable rig my fashionable friend had adorned me with. "Had we better not strap on our pistols?" I asked, not knowing what he purposed. "No; gentlemen do not wear them. Beside, at Sceaux one sharpens one's wits, and lets even his good blade dull and rust." We mustered six stout swords as we clattered away from the Austrian Arms, and I could not but note, despite what Jerome had said, he took good care to provide trusty fellows and swift horses. "A lean hound for a long race," Jerome laughingly remarked, noticing my inspection of the not over-fed nag I bestrode. We took that road leading past the heights of Villejuif, which in hardly more than an hour's brisk ride brought us to the park of Sceaux, overlooking the beautiful Fontenay valley of which I was destined to learn much. During this ride I had leisure to speak with de Greville of Florine, for the girl's story had roused a real desire in my heart to see her bettered. "There are thousands such in Paris," he replied, shrugging his shoulders unconcernedly. "The few tell you truth, the many lie to you. You know not when to believe them. If you like, though, I will see what may be done. At least she may be placed in la Saltpeterie where no present harm can reach her, to earn a living. It is not a pleasant life, and no wonder young and pretty girls prefer the gay world to the seclusion and labor of Saltpeterie. Yet we will try." He treated the matter lightly, as a thing of common occurrence, yet was Jerome tender-hearted. Men who live in great cities become so hardened to the vice and crime about them that they no longer feel keenly, as we provincials do, the appeal of misery. I might say here that Florine was one of the next ship-load of girls who were sent to the colonies. There she found a very worthy young planter who took her to wife, and after the manner of the mistreated girl in the fairy tales you children used to read, "lived happily ever afterward." She became, from all accounts, a good wife and devoted mother; her children yet live in Louisiana, happy and prosperous. CHAPTER XIV THE SECRETARY AND THE DUKE