'Yes, monsieur.'
'A convent?'
'A charming little place, monsieur; the walls are covered with roses—'
'Ah! to conceal the broken bottles and iron spikes below, I suppose.'
'Yes, monsieur,' said the Maire, grinning and bowing.
'Say monseigneur, M. le Maire; you are addressing a Viscount,' said the Chevalier Livingstone; and the magistrate bowed thrice to his red garters.
'There is a piece of the true cross there,' he added, with his impudent smile, 'in a golden shrine that cost a thousand louis d'ors, and the abbess is only four-and-twenty years old, while there is not a novice over sixteen.'
'Tête Dieu!' exclaimed the Chevalier; 'do you say so?'
'Not one over sixteen, messieurs, and all high born and beautiful.'
'By the devil's death, I shall visit them,' said Dundrennan, putting his foot in his stirrup; 'I must see all these pretty ones, hap what may.'