"Monseigneur went to bed at six o'clock this morning. He wrote, amongst other letters, one of eight pages to the Grand Marshal, and dictated to me one equally long to the Chief of the Upper Council, the Prince Herkhaüsen-Oldenzaal, his royal highness's cousin." "You know that his son, Prince Henry, has entered as lieutenant in the guards in the service of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria?" "Yes; monseigneur recommended him most warmly as his relation; and he really is a fine, excellent young man, handsome as an angel, and as good as gold." "The fact is, my dear Murphy, that if the young Prince Henry had had his _entrée_ to the grand ducal abbey of Ste. Hermenegilde, of which his aunt is the superior, the poor nuns--" "Baron! baron! why--" "My dear sir, the air of Paris--But let us talk seriously. Shall I await the rising of his royal highness to communicate all the particulars which I have procured?" "No, my dear baron. Monseigneur has desired that he should not be called before two or three o'clock in the afternoon; he desires, also, that you send off this morning these despatches by a special courier, instead of waiting till Monday. You will entrust me with all the particulars you have acquired, and I will communicate them to monseigneur when he wakes. These are his orders." "Nothing can be better, and I think his royal highness will be satisfied with what I have collected. But, my dear Murphy, I hope the despatch of the special courier is not a bad sign; the last despatches which I had the honour of sending to his royal highness--" "Announced that all was going on well at home; and it is precisely because my lord is desirous of expressing as early as possible his entire satisfaction, that he wishes a courier to be despatched this very day to Prince Herkhaüsen-Oldenzaal, Chief of the Supreme Council." "That is so like his royal highness; were it to blame instead of commend, he would observe less haste." "Nothing new has transpired with us, my dear baron,--nothing at all. Our mysterious adventures--" "Are wholly unknown. You know that, since the arrival of his royal highness in Paris, his friends have become used to see him but little in public; it is understood that he prefers seclusion, and is in the habit of making frequent excursions to the environs of Paris, and, with the exception of the Countess Sarah Macgregor and her brother, no person is aware of the disguises assumed by his royal highness; and neither of the personages I have mentioned have the smallest interest in betraying the secret." "Ah! my dear baron," exclaimed Murphy, heaving a deep sigh, "what an unfortunate thing it is that this accursed countess should be left a widow at this very important moment!" "She was married, I think, in 1827 or 1828?" "In 1827, shortly after the death of the unfortunate child, who would now be in her sixteenth or seventeenth year, and whose loss his royal highness seems daily more to deplore."