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Rh youth; "do you not think it very appropriate?" and he exhibited a small hermitage, carved in alabaster.

"Quite a moral lesson, Benserade, for you. When do you retire?"

"A hermitage? Benserade would prefer a monastery, if all tales be true," exclaimed De Joinville; "and, in their confirmation, I must say I never tasted such venison as at the Benedictine Abbey."

"And I," said the Due de Candale, "Add my testimony in favour of their wines: summer seemed to have been expressly made for their vineyards. No trifling recommendations, Monsieur Benserade."

"I have known, in my court experience, much worse ones attended to," replied Benserade.

"Your hermitage wants nothing but an inscription," said Madame de Mercœur.

"It shall want nothing that you wish," answered the poet; and, taking up a pencil, wrote four lines on the vacant space which seemed destined for such use.