paler and stiller. Yet she was considerate of Madame Marie, and more
than once insisted on Havel lying down for a couple of hours, and herself
made him a strengthening bowl of soup at the kitchen fire of the inn.
Meanwhile she inquired whether it might be possible to get four horses at
the next change, and she offered five gold pieces to a man who would ride
on ahead of them and secure the team.

Some magic seemed to bring her the accomplishment of the impossible, for
even as she made the offer, and the downcast looks of the landlord were
assuring her that her request was futile, there was the rattle of hoofs
without, and a petty Government official rode up. He had come a journey
of three miles only, and his horse was fresh. Agitated, yet ruling
herself to composure, Madelinette approached him and made her proposal
to him. He was suspicious, as became a petty Government official, and
replied sullenly. She offered him money--before the landlord, unhappily
--and his refusal was now unnecessarily bitter. She turned away sadly,
but Madame Marie had been roused by the official's churlishness, and for
once the placid little body spoke in that vulgar tongue which needs no
interpretation. She asked the fellow if he knew to whom he had been
impolite, to whom he had refused a kindly act.

"You--you, a habitant road-watcher, a pound-keeper, a village tax-
collector, or something less!" she said. "You to refuse the great
singer Madelinette Lajeunesse, the wife of the Seigneur of Pontiac, the
greatest patriot in the land; to refuse her whom princes are glad to
serve--" She stopped and gasped her indignation.

A hundred speeches and a hundred pounds could not have done so much. The
habitant official stared in blank amazement, the landlord took a glass of
brandy to steady himself.