The Little Huguenot. Pemberton Max

of the company in the chapel. But now, when the priest had ended the mournful chanting, little acolytes in scarlet cassocks and white cottas kindled the tapers upon the high altar and also those in a great chandelier beneath the rood-screen. The new light fell upon a reredos of marble and gold, almost hidden by vases of white flowers. It fell, too, upon the face of an old priest gorgeously robed in a jewelled cope. While taper-bearers and thurifers prostrated themselves before the Host in the monstrance, and a hidden choir began to sing very sweetly the Latin hymn, "O Salutaris Hostia," de Guyon had eyes for none of these, but only for the little group of worshippers who knelt by the chancel gates. Here were some twelve men and women, all seemingly absorbed in their devotions, all dressed very soberly, and for the most part in plain black. There was not a man amongst them that hid his hair in a wig; not a woman of the company that seemed to know of the coiffure à boucles badines, au berceau d'amour or au mirliton. Simplicity was the note of it all, and de Guyon, when he had shaken off his surprise, admitted that this simplicity was in pretty harmony with the sombre note of the chapel. He might have been watching so many monks and nuns who had clothed themselves in lay dress—but timidly.

      In the centre of the little company, there knelt a girl whose face was hidden from him, but whose figure and pose were infinitely graceful. He was led to believe by the position she occupied that she must be the countess, and that the men at her side were the poets and philosophers who had come to the château to air their graces and to fill their stomachs. For the time being she was occupied entirely with her devotions, and when she raised the smallest of white hands, it was to bury her face in them while she prostrated herself before the upraised Host, Anon, however, the music died away suddenly; the last cloud of incense floated to the vaulted roof; the acolytes extinguished the candles before the altar, and the girl rose and passed down the chapel. De Guyon said to himself that the gossips were right. If a Madonna had come out of one of the pictures above the shrines, and had stood before him, lending flesh and blood to the painter's vision, he could scarce have been more surprised. Such a delicacy of form and feature he had hardly seen in all the six years he had been at Versailles; had never known eyes in which so much tenderness and emotion seemed to lie. He declared that her mouth was like a rosebud upon which the dew has just fallen. She held herself with the grace of a woman grown grey in practising the courtesies; yet her limbs had the roundness and suppleness of maturing youth. The black robe, falling from her shoulders prettily yet without panier, and set off only with lace at her neck and wrists, was her best adornment. She wore no jewels; not so much as a band of gold upon her arm. Her brown hair was simply coiled upon her head. De Guyon said to himself that Legros, with all his art, could not have added to the effect of it. And with this thought he left the chapel to await her in the courtyard.

      Her greeting was simple, neither effusive nor lacking welcome.

      "I have heard of you, Monsieur de Guyon, from my Cousin Claude," said she, when he had presented his letters to her; "you must be tired, indeed. Let us think of supper before we read even these letters"—and so turning to the group of men standing behind her, she added simply—

      "Gentlemen, let me present you Monsieur de Guyon, a lieutenant of his Majesty's Guards. He has ridden far to serve us, and we must thank him by hastening to supper."

      She passed on with a graceful inclination of her head, while servants conducted de Guyon to a room in the right wing of the château. Ten minutes later he was supping in the hall.