4^0 TEN" YEARS LATER. "Nothing, nothing; a pain in my side. I have been laughing too much. We were at the fourth chance, 1 think?" "I cannot see a fourth." "I beg your pardon; I am not excluded from the chance of winning, and if I be the winner, you are sure of me." "Oh! thank you, thank you!" exclaimed madame. "I hope you look upon yourself as one whose chances are good, and that my dream now begins to assume the solid form of reality." "Yes, indeed; you give me both hope and confidence," said madame, "and the bracelets, won in this manner, will be a hundred times more precious to me." "Well, then, good-by, until this evening." And the two princesses separated. Anne of Austria, after her daughter-in-law had left her, said to herself, as she ex- amined the bracelets. "They are, indeed, precious; since, by their means, this evening, I shall have won over a heart to my side, and, at the same time, shall have guessed a secret." Then, turning toward the deserted recess in her room, she said, addressing vacancy: "Is it not thus that you would have acted, my poor Chevreuse? Yes, yes; I know it is." And, like a perfume of days gone by, her youth, her imagination, and her happiness seemed to return to her with the echo of this invocation. CHAPTER LXV. THE LOTTERY. At eight o'clock in the evening every one had assembled in the queen-mother's apartments. A'nne of Austria, in full dress, beautiful still, from former loveliness, and from all the resources which coquetry can command at the hands of clever assistants, concealed, or rather pretended to con- ceal, from the crowd of young courtiers who surrounded her, and who still admired her, thanks to the combination of circumstances which we have indicated in the preceding chapter, the ravages, which were already visible, of the acute suffering to which she finally yielded a few years later. Madame, almost as great a coquette as Anne of Austria, and the queen, simple and natural as usual, were seated beside her, each contending for her good graces.
