“There! there!” said Mademoiselle de Montalais; “there is our little lamb, our gentle dove, angry! Don’t be afraid, Louise—Madame de Saint-Remy will not come; and if she should, you know I have a quick ear. Besides, what can be more permissible than to write to an old friend of twelve years’ standing, particularly when the letter begins with the words ‘Monsieur Raoul’?” “It is all very well—I will not write to him at all,” said the young girl. “Ah, ah! in good sooth, Montalais is properly punished,” cried the jeering brunette, still laughing. “Come, come! let us try another sheet of paper, and finish our dispatch off-hand. Good! there is the bell ringing now. By my faith, so much the worse! Madame must wait, or else do without her first maid of honor this morning.” A bell, in fact, did ring; it announced that Madame had finished her toilette, and waited for Monsieur to give her his hand, and conduct her from the salon to the refectory. This formality being accomplished with great ceremony, the husband and wife breakfasted, and then separated till the hour of dinner, invariably fixed at two o’clock. The sound of this bell caused a door to be opened in the offices on the left hand of the court, from which filed two maitres d’hotel followed by eight scullions bearing a kind of hand-barrow loaded with dishes under silver covers. One of the maitres d’hotel, the first in rank, touched one of the guards, who was snoring on his bench, slightly with his wand; he even carried his kindness so far as to place the halbert which stood against the wall in the hands of the man stupid with sleep, after which the soldier, without explanation, escorted the viande of Monsieur to the refectory, preceded by a page and the two maitres d’hotel. Wherever the viande passed, the soldiers ported arms. Mademoiselle de Montalais and her companion had watched from their window the details of this ceremony, to which, by the bye, they must have been pretty well accustomed. But they did not look so much from curiosity as to be assured they should not be disturbed. So, guards, scullions, maitres d’hotel, and pages having passed, they resumed their places at the table; and the sun, which, through the window-frame, had for an instant fallen upon those two charming countenances, now only shed its light upon the gilliflowers, primroses, and rose-tree. “Bah!” said Mademoiselle de Montalais, taking her place again; “Madame will breakfast very well without me!” “Oh! Montalais, you will be punished!” replied the other girl, sitting down quietly in hers.