"Very well, if you think best, but I like to do things for her, Le Glorieux. I went to the wars with my father when I was so young that I scarcely remember the love of a sister, and when the Lady Marguerite smiled at me the first night that I saw her, with a look of kindness that no one else ever had given me, I felt as if I could give up my life for her." "She always is kind," said the jester; "she never is haughty, even to her servants. I loved her in the first place because she was her mother's daughter, but now I love her for herself. She never has a harsh word or a sharp tongue for the poor fool, and seems to remember that he has feelings as well as the rest of the world." [Illustration: He lay for some time stunned] The edelweiss is a flower which grows upon dizzy heights, blooming under the snow. The great difficulty sometimes experienced in finding it renders it the more desirable. Philibert had seen the flower and knew that it usually grew in dangerous places; but this fact did not make him hesitate for a moment in his resolve to pluck it. After searching for some time he was at last rewarded by seeing a cluster of the snowy blossoms hanging over the edge of a dark rock some distance below him. There was no way to reach it but to attempt a dangerous descent by climbing down the cliff to where the flowers grew. But the boy, in his eagerness to obtain the flower, did not think of the danger, and forthwith began to climb downward, finding a foothold on rough projections, and clinging to others, sliding cautiously downward, for there was a little level space just above the plant where he knew he could stand while securing it. It was a foolhardy feat, and would not have been undertaken by any but a rash youth, who gave no thought to possible consequences, and who was resolved to accomplish what he had undertaken in spite of everything. A stunted shrub grew out of the rocks some distance above the flower, and Philibert grasped it, thinking to swing himself downward. This act was his undoing, for the treacherous limb broke with a sharp snap, and the youth was precipitated downward, not to the level space beside the flower, but over it and some twenty feet down to another level space, where he lay for some time stunned and unconscious. When he returned to his senses he was lying flat on his back on a narrow ledge of rock, and dangerously near the edge, with a little stream of blood trickling from his temple. Rising to his feet he moved his legs and arms as vigorously as possible, to see if any bones were broken, but was delighted to find that, with the exception of the cut, which did not seem to be a deep one, he had sustained no serious injury.