“She was never scornful to any one,” said Marie; “but if he ever asked her for her love, I have no doubt she told him that she could not give it to him.”

“That’s just what they say; and that then he asked her more and more, and went down on his knees to her, and prayed her just as much as to look at him; and kissed her feet, and cried dreadfully; and that all she did was to turn aside her face, and bid him rise and leave her.”

“What would you nave had her say, Annot, if she felt that she could not love him?”

“Oh!  I’m not presuming to find fault with her, Mademoiselle; heaven forbid!  Of course, if she couldn’t love him, she could do nothing but refuse him.  But, heigho! it’s a very dreadful thing to think of that a nice young man like him—­for I’m told that this Denot was a very nice young man—­should be so bewildered by love as he has been.”

“Love couldn’t make a man a traitor,” said Marie, “nor yet a coward.”

“I don’t know, Mademoiselle, love is a very fearful thing when it doesn’t go right.  Perhaps love never made you feel so angry that you’d like to eat your lover’s heart?”

“Gracious goodness, no,” said Marie; “why, Annot, where did you get such a horrid idea as that?”

“Ah!  Mademoiselle, your lover’s one in a hundred!  So handsome, so noble, so good, so grand, so amiable, so everything that a young lady could wish to dream about:  one, too, that never has vagaries and jealousies, and nasty little aggravating ways.  Oh!  Mademoiselle, I look upon you as the happiest young lady in the world.

“What on earth, Annot, do you know about my lover, or how on earth can you know that I have a lover at all?  Why, child, I and my cousin Agatha are both going to be nuns at St. Laurent.”

“The blessed Virgin forbid it,” said Annot.  “Not but what Mademoiselle Agatha would look beautiful as a nun.  She has the pale face, and the long straight nose, and the calm melancholy eyes, just as a nun ought to have; but then she should join the Carmelite ladies at the rich convent of our Blessed Lady at St. Maxent, where they all wear beautiful white dresses and white hoods, and have borders to their veils, and look so beautiful that there need hardly be any change in them when they go to heaven; and not become one of those dusty-musty black sisters of mercy at St. Laurent.”

“That’s your idea of a nun, is it?” said Madame de Lescure.

“I’m sure, Madame, I don’t know why any girl should try to make herself look ugly, if God has made her as beautiful as Mademoiselle Agatha.”

“And you think then Mademoiselle de Lescure is not fit for a nun at all?”

“Oh, Madame, we all know she is going to be married immediately to the finest, handsomest, most noble young nobleman in all Poitou.  Oh!  I’d give all the world to have such a lover as M. Henri just for ten minutes, to see him once kneeling at my feet.”

“For ten minutes,” said Marie.  “What good would that do you? that would only make you unhappy when the ten minutes were gone and past.”