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Rh my question—what have you to desire more than you at present possess?"

"Security. Here we are strangers, dependents on that vainest of human reliances, court favour. I have seen my uncle forced into exile by an imperious and ambitious faction;—true, I, perhaps, should not complain; for it proved, if I had needed proof, the disinterestedness of Mercœur's attachment. He followed me into banishment, and married me when the very name of Mazarin was the signal for popular outcry and contumely."

"But, now that the Cardinal's power is more firmly fixed than ever, and yourself so happy in your husband and your home—"

"It is for others that I fear—for my sisters, indulging the most golden hopes, depending on so many chances, and which must make any destiny less brilliant than what they now anticipate, and of which they once so little dreamed, a disappointment hard to be borne."

"Yet what is not within your reasonable expectations? I saw from the gallery the caresses which the queen so publicly lavished upon you all; and, then, the flattering distinction of the king appearing in Marie's colours!"

"Ah! it is on Marie's account that I am most