colonel, which may tend to reconcile him to the uniform I now wear. He is one of the bravest fellows I ever met with, and I set a value on his good opinion. Tell him that I have always acted with the frankness of a soldier who fears nothing, not even his sovereign, where his honour is in question. Where mine is concerned I never have, and never will be, subservient to any potentate upon earth. As I once acted, so would I act again, under the same circumstances. My principle is to pursue a straightforward course, without stopping to weigh the consequences. This mode of conduct has always answered to me perfectly, and I do not intend to change it."

Judithe pondered for a while on these high-sounding words, so well adapted to

1 Almost all this letter is an extract from the Comte de Bonneval's correspondence.

mislead a mind which, although naturally clear-sighted, was strangely warped by her affection for the writer. She saw that M. de Bonneval, keenly susceptible as he was on the subject of honour, that much perverted word, had been wounded at the view which his old comrade-in-arms had taken of his conduct. She blushed deeply at the recollection of having been obliged, however slightly, to allude to Lafond's prejudices on the subject. She sympathised with his annoyance, and admired his generosity. To pay a tribute of praise and send a token of regard to one who had judged him unfairly was, in her eyes, one of those traits which mark a man's character, and it served to raise to the highest pitch her enthusiasm for her betrothed husband.

As she sat down to write to Lafond a letter, which was to enclose M. de Bonneval's gift, she felt a certain misgiving as

to the manner in which the communication would be received. She kept working herself up to believe in the impossibility that a man in his position of life, and by no means well-educated, should persist in condemning the conduct of a person whom both the Court and the capital of France had absolved from blame, and welcomed with acclamation. He must be touched, she thought, by the kindness of his once beloved colonel; he must be grateful for his honourable mention of him; and so Judithe despatched an epistle as elaborately composed, as delicately penned, as any she had ever addressed to her most fastidious friends,-even to M. de Bonrepos in return for one of his best sonnets, or to Madame de Lambert to return thanks for an invitation to one of her literary parties. She embodied in it the spirit of M. de Bonneval's somewhat grandiloquent self-defence, and tempered it with the grace

which the women of that day knew how to impart to everything they wrote. She sent this letter to the Curé of Biron, and begged him in case Lafond should not know how to read, a point which she had never clearly ascertained during her residence in Gascony, to make him acquainted with its contents; but it so happened that the soldier could read, and write too, although in an imperfect manner, and on the eve of her marriage Mademoiselle de Gonreceived from him the the following

taut

answer:

"MADEMOISELLE.

"I am very sensible of the honour you have done me. I never saw so many fine words in a letter before, or such beautiful writing. I have cut out your pretty little signature, and pasted it on a card. It lies between the leaves of my prayer-book,

next to the picture of my patron saint, the good St. John. As to the present you are so good as to enclose, I herewith return it. Monsieur le comte is very good to remember the likes of me, but Austrian money would not sit easily in Jean Lafond's pocket. I am only a poor peasant, who was once a soldier. Maybe that in your fine town of Paris the great folks call things by different names from what we have been used to do. In my time in the regiment we soldiers used to think that honour meant to stick by our colours. It means something else now, I suppose! and so, mademoiselle, you must excuse my simplicity, and please not to take it amiss. They tell us here at the chateau that you are about to be married to monsieur le comte, your cousin. May he prove true to you, and stick by your colours, my sweet lady; but maybe that is changed, too, now-a-days, and that people call it honour