‘Frightful, frightful,’ she sighed, ’but we will do our best to make up.  You, sir, must be his trucheman.’

Philip, not catching the last word, and wondering what kind of man that might be, made answer, ‘I am his brother, Madame.’

‘Eh!  Monsieur son frere.  Had Madame sa mere a son so old?’

’I am Philip Thistlewood, her husband’s son, at your service, Madame,’ said Philip, colouring up to the ears; ’I came with him for he is too weak to be alone.’

‘Great confidence must be reposed in you, sir,’ she said, with a not unflattering surprise.  ’But whence are you come?  I little looked to see Monsieur here.’

‘We came from Anjou, Madame.  We went to La Sablerie,’ and he broke off.

‘I understand.  Ah! let us say no more!  It rends the heart;’ and again she wiped away tear.  ‘And now—–­’

’We are coming to the Ambassador’s to obtain’—­he stopped, for Berenger gave him a touch of peremptory warning, but the lady saved his embarrassment by exclaiming that she could not let her dear cousin go to the Ambassador’s when he was among his own kindred.  Perhaps Monsieur did not know her; she must present herself as Madame de Selinville, nee de Ribaumont, a poor cousin of ce cher Baron, ’and even a little to you, M. le frere, if you will own me,’ and she held out a hand, which he ought to have kissed, but not knowing how, he only shook it.  She further explained that her brother was at Cracow with Monsieur, now King of Poland, but that her father lived with her at her hotel, and would be enchanted to see his dear cousin, only that he, like herself, would be desolated at the effects of that most miserable of errors.  She had been returning from her Advent retreat at a convent, where she had been praying for the soul of the late M. de Selinville, when a true Providence had made her remark the colours of her family.  And now, nothing would serve her, but that this dear Baron should be carried at once to their hotel, which was much nearer than that of the Ambassador, and where every comfort should await him.  She clasped her hands in earnest entreaty, and Philip, greatly touched by her kindness and perceiving that every jolt of the splendid by springless vehicle caused Berenger’s head a shoot of anguish, was almost acceding to her offer, when he was checked by one of the most imperative of those silent negatives.  Hitherto, Master Thistlewood had been rather proud of his bad French, and as long as he could be understood, considered trampling on genders, tenses, and moods as a manful assertion of Englishry, but he would just now have given a great deal for the command of any language but a horseboy’s, to use to this beautiful gracious personage. ’Merci, Madame, nous ne fallons pas, nous avons passe notre parole d’aller droit a l’Ambassadeur’s et pas ou else,’ did not sound very right to his ears ; he coloured up to the roots of his hair, and knew that if Berry