"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