Part 30 (2/2)

We arrived at a sufficiently early hour, and had ti found the situation h up above the Seine, those woods full of broad walks, of light and air, those points of view happily chosen and arranged, gave a char effect; the house of one story, raised on steps of sixteen stairs, appeared to us elegant fro put a little architecture and ornaht to be careless; since universal agreehnesses, we must kno to carry our burden, and to lay it down at no time, and in no place”

Maderound of her remoteness from the world, and on the expense, which she wished to keep down

”Fro, ”you must have a hundred to a hundred and twelve, acres here”

”A hundred and nine,” she answered

”Have you paid dear for this property?” went on the King ”It is the President Gonthier who has sold it?”

”I paid for this site, and the old house which no longer exists, forty thousand livres,” she said

”Forty thousand livres!” cried the King ”Oh,as conscience! You have not paid for the ground I was assured that poor President Gonthier had only got rid of his house at Choisy because his affairs were embarrassed; you must inde him a pension”

Mademoiselle bit her lip and added:

”The President asked sixty thousand first; my men of business offered hienerosity, although she is immensely rich; she pretended not to hear, and it was M Colbert who sent by order the twenty thousand livres to the President

Madeeoise of yesterday, showed us her gallery, where she had already collected the selected portraits of all her ancestors, relations, and kindred; she pointed out to us in her winter salon the portrait of the little Comte de Toulouse, painted, not as an ad on a pearl shell; and his brother, the Duc du Maine, as Colonel-General of the Swiss and Grisons The full-length portrait of the King was visible on three chireat pains tofollowed her into her state chamber, where she had stolen in privately, I saw that she was taking away the portrait of Lauzun I went and told it to the King, who shrugged his shoulders and fell to laughing

”She is fifty-two years old,” he said to me

A very pretty collation of confitures and fruits was served us, to which the King prayed her to add a ragout of peas and a roasted fowl

During the repast, he said to her: ”For the rest, I have not noticed the portrait of Gaston, your father; is it a distraction on my part, or an omission on yours?”

”It will be put there later,” she answered ”It is not ti ”You do not think that, cousin!”

”All hed in the balance beforehand; if I were to exhibit the portrait of my father at the head of these various pictures, I should have to put my stepmother, his wife, there too, as a necessary pendant The harm which she has done me does not permit of that complacence One opens one's house only to one's friends”

”Your step, ”than to reclaim for her children the funds or the furniture left by your father The character of Margaret of Lorraine has always been sweetness itself; seeing your irritation, she begged me to arbitrate myself; and you know all that M Colbert and the Chancellor did to satisfy you under the circu else, and cease these discussions I have a service to ask of you: here is M le Duc du Maine already big; everybody knows of your affection for him, and I have seen his portrait with pleasure, in one of your salons I aive him your livery?”

”M le Duc du Maine,” said the Princess, ”is the type of what is gracious, and noble, and beautiful; he can only do honour to rant it hi it Would I were in a position to doperfectly understood these last words; he made no reply to them, but he understood all that he was ardens