CHAPTER XLI. WHAT WAS SAID UNDER THE ROYAL OAK.
The softness of the air, the stillness of the foliage, tacitly imposed upon these young girls an engagement to change immediately their giddy conversation for one of a more serious character. She, indeed, whose disposition was the most lively,—Montalais, for instance,—was the first to yield to the influence; and she began by heaving a deep sigh, and saying:—”What happiness to be here alone, and at liberty, with every right to be frank, especially towards one another.”
“Yes,” said Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente; “for the court, however brilliant it may be, has always some falsehood concealed beneath the folds of its velvet robes, or the glitter of its diamonds.”
“I,” replied La Valliere, “I never tell a falsehood; when I cannot speak the t
