THE KING'S LIST.
Marie Antoniette, with a happy smile, gave her hand to her husband. He raised it to his lips, and kissed it so fervently that his young wife blushed with pleasure.
"Do you know what brings me to you, Antoinette?" said he gayly. "The deadly anxiety of good Madame Etiquette. She met me in the anteroom, and confessed that she had been guilty of the crime of leaving the queen alone with a foreign ambassador. To relieve her mind, I promised to come hither myself, and put an end to the treason that was hatching between France ad Austria."
"Ah!" said Marie Antoinette, with a bewitching pout, "then you came, not to see me, but to save Madame Etiquette a fit of the vapors."
"I made use of her as a pretext to intrude myself upon you," said the king with embarrassment.
"Oh, your majesty well knows that you need no pretext to come in my presence!" said Marie Antoinette, eagerly.
"Certainly, I require it just now, for I have broken up a charming tete-a-tete," said the king, bowing to Von Mercy.
"The count has brought me letters from the empress," said Marie Antoinette, "And what do you suppose they were? Congratulations upon our accession to the throne."
The king smiled, but expressed no surprise.
"What, you are not surprised!" said the queen. "Do you take the count for a sorcerer?"