"My sister is very pretty," Judithe observed, with a deep sigh that had certainly no relation to the remark she had made.

"Very, on canvass or ivory," replied M. de Bonrepos, who was no great admirer of the young ambassadress. "There are persons whose pictures are invariably an improvement on themselves, others who only lose by the experiment. I advise you, for instance, never to sit for your picture."

"Why not?" inquired Judithe, with a smile.

"Why, in the first instance, the painter would give you fine but not charming eyes. A complexion of lilies and roses instead-"

"Instead of my own, which is of the colour of the Spanish jessamine," she laughingly interrupted.

"No, indeed, Mademoiselle Judithe; I was going to say of a delicate eglantine, just tinged with a faint flush. And then they would paint you with coral lips, as they call them, and not with that rose-bud of a mouth in which I used years ago to count the little white teeth, when you were sitting on my knees, and playing with my ruffles. Ah! Mademoiselle de Gontaut! It is hard work to get out of the habit of loving you!"

"And why should you lose so excellent a habit, M. de Bonrepos?"

"What, adding insult to injury, by pretending to ignore my wrongs? You are a faithless, cruel, inconstant fair one, but time will work a change in your feelings, 'sooner or later,' as Racine has it, 'you will give me back a heart that should be mine.' What, do you frown upon my poetic reproaches? Do you

grudge the moments that you bestow upon me?"

At that moment the door was thrown open, and the Duc de St. Simon came in. Judithe whispered to M. de Bonrepos :

"That is a man that I cannot endure." "Indeed! you would then have been charmed with a lampoon that was handed about yesterday all over the town."

"What did it say?"

"I cannot remember the lines, but it was to the effect that M. de St. Simon, in his spite, attacks the whole nobility, and would do well to stay at home, and look into his own genealogy. Did not the verses run thus, M. de Brancas?"

This question was addressed to a young man who was standing at a short distance, and seemed inclined to join in the conversation.

66

"You know," he answered, "who composed that squib?"

reason.

"No, indeed, I do not. Favour us, if you please, with the name of the author." "Bonneval, to be sure, last night at a supper at Riom's. He was in high force, and in the humour for rhymes, if not for He made a number of verses on all the great people, and did not spare the ladies either, the then present company of course excepted. Madame de Nesle and Madame de Montbazon were nearly dying of laughter. He invented a sort of courtcalendar, which immediately became the rage. It was printed at a moment's notice, and to-day people are fighting for the copies. There is nobody so amusing as Bonneval. Young Arouet, that wicked little skeleton, as Madame la Duchesse de Berry calls him, protests that the devil himself is not half so clever."

"He was then in Paris yesterday, and never came near me," Judithe inwardly ejaculated, and the sound of a smothered

sigh reached M. de Bonrepos' ear. abruptly and walked

He rose

away,

murmuring

between his teeth:

"That angel's heart, that madonna-like face! If this is not casting pearls before swine I do not know what the text means."

He was so absorbed by his thoughts that he did not immediately perceive that M. de St. Simon was standing near him, and endeavouring to catch his eye. When he did so, he suffered himself to be led away into a corner, and plied with questions by the noble duke. Amongst other topics of conversation Mademoiselle de Gontaut's approaching marriage was discussed between them, and M. de Bonrepos inquired of his friend if he had seen the bridegroom.

"Biron brought him to my house a few days ago, was the reply. "I never saw, in my life, a man more at his ease."

1 From St. Simon's Memoirs.