The Orphans of La Sablerie

The cream tarts with pepper in them.--ARABIAN NIGHTS.


Hope, spring, and recovery carried the young Baronde Ribaumont on
his journey infinitely better than his companions had dared to
expect.  He dreaded nothing so much as being overtaken by those
tidings which would make King Charles's order mere waste paper; and
therefore pressed on with little regard to his own fatigue,
although happily with increasing strength, which carried him a
further stage every day.

Lucon was a closely-guarded, thoroughly Catholic city, and his
safe-conduct was jealously demanded; but the name of Ribaumont
silenced all doubt.  'A relation, apparently, of M. de Nid de
Merle,' said the officer on guard, and politely invited him to
dinner and bed at the castle; but these he thought it prudent to
decline, explaining that he brought a letter from the King to the
Mother Prioress.

The convent walls were pointed out to him, and he only delayed at
the inn long enough to arrange his dress as might appear to the
Abbess most respectful, and, poor boy, be least likely to startle
the babe on whom his heart was set.  At almost every inn, the
little children had shrieked and run from his white and gashed
face, and his tall, lank figure in deep black; and it was very
sadly that he said to Philip, 'You must come with me.  If she turns
from me as an ogre, your bright ruddy face will win her.

The men were left at the inn with charge to let Guibert speak for
them, and to avoid showing their nationality.  The three months of
Paris, and the tailors there, had rendered Philip much less
conspicuous than formerly; but still people looked at him narrowly
as he followed his brother along the street.  The two lads had made
up their minds to encumber themselves with no nurses, or womanfolk.