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It was Fred who spoke first. "In the first place," he said, hesitating, "are you sure that Mademoiselle de Nailles has not just arrived from Monaco?" "I am certain that for a week she has been living quietly with Modeste, and that, though she passed through Monaco, she did not stay there twenty-four hours, finding that the air of that place did not agree with her."

"Then you approve of stratagems?" said Modeste. "On both sides," cried Gobenheim, "and that brings it even." This conversation was carried on by fits and starts, as they say, in the intervals of cutting and dealing the cards; and it soon turned chiefly on the merits of the Duc d'Herouville, who was thought very good-looking by little Latournelle, little Dumay, and little Butscha.

" who know my situation, and all that I shall lose in the Duchesse de Chaulieu, by this attempt at marrying, YOU could coldly let me plunge into such a thing as this?" exclaimed Canalis, turning pale. "It was a question of friendship; and ours was a compact entered into long before you ever saw that crafty Mignon." "My dear fellow," said Ernest, "I love Modeste too well to "

He had recently been intrusted with a mission to the Genoese Republic, which was in a most difficult position. It was subject to pressure from three sides; from English men-of-war that had swooped down on a French frigate, the "Modeste," in Genoese waters; and from actual invasion by the French on the west and by the Austrians on the north.

They will never have our Californias while a Californian lives to cut them down!" "Bravo! bravo!" cried many voices. "I tell you " began Pio Pico, but Doña Modeste interrupted him. "No more talk of war to-night," she said peremptorily. "Where is Ysabel?"

At last the French line was entirely broken, and we obtained the victory, which was immediately proclaimed with loud huzzas and acclamations. We took three prizes, La Modeste, of sixty-four guns, and Le Temeraire and Centaur, of seventy-four guns each. The rest of the French ships took to flight with all the sail they could crowd.

Modeste smiled as Henri IV. must have smiled after drawing out the characters of his three principal ministers, for the benefit of a foreign ambassador, by means of three answers to an insidious question.

"You are a sorcerer!" exclaimed Modeste. "Neither will you find that sweet equality of feeling, that continual sharing of each other's life, that certainty of pleasing which makes marriage tolerable, if you take Canalis, a man who thinks of himself only, whose 'I' is the one string to his lute, whose mind is so fixed on himself that he has hitherto taken no notice of your father or the duke, a man of second-rate ambitions, to whom your dignity and your devotion will matter nothing, who will make you a mere appendage to his household, and who already insults you by his indifference to your behavior; yes, if you permitted yourself to go so far as to box your mother's ears Canalis would shut his eyes to it, and deny your crime even to himself, because he thirsts for your money.

"Madame," he cried, "he is a serpent whom we have warmed in our bosoms; there's no place in his contorted little body for a soul!" Modeste put the letter for her father into the pocket of her apron, supposing it to be that for Canalis, and came downstairs with the letter for her lover in her hand, to see Dumay before he started for Paris.

They were willing to extend the hand of friendship; but he rode last, between the General and Doña Modeste, and seemed to care as little for their good will as for their ill. Pio Pico rode ahead, and as the cavalcade entered the town he broke from it and ascended the hill to carry the news to Ysabel Herrera.