Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/172

 to lie prostrate under the tree and look his last on the tempting beauty of the golden apple he might never hope to reach."

There was something unusual in the Abbé's tone, and the Duke, glancing in his face, thought he had turned very pale; but in another moment he was smiling pleasantly at his own awkwardness, while he assisted the Regent into the uniform, and fitted on the accoutrements of a Musketeer.

It took some little time, and cost many remonstrances from Robecque, who was not gifted with a military eye, to complete the transformation. Nevertheless, by dint of persuasion and perseverance, the moustaches were at length blacked and twisted, the belts adjusted, the boots wrinkled, and the hat cocked with that mixture of ease, fierceness, good-humour and assumption, which was indispensable to a proper conception of the character—a true rendering of the part.

It was somewhat against the grain to resign for a while the attitudes and gestures of Henri Quatre, but even such a sacrifice was little regretted when the Duke scanned himself from top to toe in a long mirror, with a smile of undisguised satisfaction at the result of his toilet.

"'Tis the garrison type to the life!" said he, exultingly. "Guard-room, parade, and bivouac combined. Abbé! Abbé! what a flower of Musketeers she spoiled when blind Fortune made me Regent of France!"