mirrored every tender grace of girlhood, all that is fresh and pure
and virginal.

I held my breath, I think, as I stood in ravished contemplation of
that white vision. If this were Lavedan, and that the cold Roxalanne
who had sent my bold Chatellerault back to Paris empty-handed then
were my task a very welcome one.

How little it had weighed with me that I was come to Languedoc to
woo a woman bearing the name of Roxalanne de Lavedan I have already
shown. But here in this same Languedoc I beheld to-night a woman
whom it seemed I might have loved, for not in ten years - not,
indeed, in all my life - had any face so wrought upon me and called
to my nature with so strong a voice.

I gazed at that child, and I thought of the women that I had known
--the bold, bedizened beauties of a Court said to be the first in
Europe. And then it came to me that this was no demoiselle of
Lavedan, no demoiselle at all in fact, for the noblesse of France
owned no such faces. Candour and purity were not to be looked for
in the high-bred countenances of our great families; they were
sometimes found in the faces of the children of their retainers.
Yes; I had it now. This child was the daughter of some custodian
of the demesne before me.

Suddenly, as she stood there in the moonlight, a song, sung at
half-voice, floated down on the calm air. It was a ditty of old
Provence, a melody I knew and loved, and if aught had been wanting
to heighten the enchantment that already ravished me, that soft
melodious voice had done it. Singing still, she turned and reentered