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The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and

rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and

toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender

of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was

nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as

they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they

dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements;

which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out,

seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been

extinguished.

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging

trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow

was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage

stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened to him.

"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?"

"Monseigneur, not yet."

CHAPTER IX. The Gorgon's Head