"When the stern father returned after the Peace of Monsieur, ill-pleased, as you can imagine, to see the rebels more generously rewarded than the friends of the true faith, he flew into a furious rage against the whole world, even against God Himself, who had allowed his young wife to die of the plague in his absence. Looking about for somebody to be revenged upon, he declared that his older son had returned solely for the purpose of destroying the son of his old age by witchcraft.
"It was a most villainous charge on the old corsair's part, for the child had never been in better health nor better cared for, and poor Sylvain was as incapable of an evil design as the child unborn."
Guillaume d'Ars had reached this point in his narrative, which had brought them in sight of Briantes, when a sort of bourgeois maiden, dressed in black, red and gray, with her dress turned up at the bottom and cut high at the neck, came toward them, and, approaching young D'Ars' stirrup, said, with repeated reverences:
"Alas! monsieur, I fear that you have come to ask my honored master, the Marquis de Bois-Doré, to entertain you at dinner. But you will not find him: he is at La Motte-Seuilly for the day, having given us our liberty until night."
This intelligence was exceedingly annoying to young D'Ars, but he was too well-bred to allow his annoyance to appear. He instantly determined what course to pursue, and said, courteously uncovering:
"Very well, Demoiselle Bellinde; we will go on to La Motte-Seuilly. A pleasant walk and bonjour!"
Then, to relieve his vexation, he said to Monsieur d'Alvimar, after pointing out their new direction:
"Is she not a most toothsome housekeeper, whose comely aspect gives one a captivating idea of our dear Bois-Doré's abode?"
Bellinde, who overhead this query, which was propounded aloud and in a jovial tone, bridled up, smiled, and, summoning a little groom by whom she was escorted as by a page, produced from her flowing sleeves two small white dogs, which she bade him deposit gently on the turf, as if to give them exercise, but in reality to have an excuse for facing the cavaliers, and affording them a longer view of her fine new serge gown and her plump figure.
She was a damsel of some thirty-five years, high-colored, with hair of a shade approaching red and by no means unpleasant to the eye; for she had a great quantity of it, and wore it in curls under her cap, to the great scandal of the ladies of the province, who reproached her for seeking to rise above her station. But she had a malicious expression, even when she strove to be agreeable.