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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 truth, I remain silent." "You will not long remain in favor," said Montalais; "it is not here as it was at Blois, where we told the dowager Madame all our little annoyances, and all our longings.

There were certain days when Madame remembered that she herself had been young, and, on those days, whoever talked with her found in her a sincere friend.

She related to us her flirtations with Monsieur, and we told her of the flirtations she had had with others, or, at least, the rumors of them that had spread abroad.