"Why do you say that, Marguerite?"
"Because I feel it, my pretty little child," she replied.
"No, no, no, no," cried Lucille, still with a heightened color, and looking with her fine eyes full into the dim optics of the old woman; "you had some reason for saying that—you know you had!"
"By my word of honor, no," retorted the old woman, in her turn surprised—"no, my dear; but what is the matter—why do you blush so?"
"Well, I shall return in about an hour," said Lucille, abstractedly, and not heeding the question; and then with a gay air she tripped singing from the door, and so went gaily down the bosky slope to the edge of the wood.
II.—THE GENTLEMAN IN BLUE AND SILVER.
Lucille had no sooner got among the mossy roots of the trees, than her sylvan task commenced, and the fragrant crimson berries began to fill her basket. Her little head was very busy with all manner of marvelous projects; but this phantasmagoria was not gloomy; on the contrary, it was gorgeous and pleasant; for the transparent green shadow of the branches and the mellow singing of the birds toned her daydreams with their influence.
In the midst of those airy pageants she was interrupted by a substantial and by no means unprepossessing reality. A gentleman of graceful form and mien, dressed in a suit of sky-blue and silver, with a fowling-piece in his hand, and followed closely by a bare-legged rustic, carrying a rude staff and a well-stored game-bag, suddenly emerged from behind a mass of underwood close by. It was plain that he and Lucille were acquainted, for he instantly stopped, signing to his attendant to pursue his way, and raising his three-cornered hat, bowed as the last century only could bow, with an inclination that was at once the expression of chivalry and ease. His features were singularly handsome, but almost too delicate for his sex, pale, and with a certain dash of melancholy in their noble intelligence.
"You here, Monsieur Dubois!" exclaimed Lucille, in a tone that a little faltered, and with a blush that made her doubly beautiful. "What strange chance has conducted you to this spot?"