porch. A myriad leaves raise prayerful faces to the sky.
The stars of night bestow a benediction of unbroken
peace; and all the while, beneath her vesture of leafy
green, the earth is reaching up and silently drawing back
to herself the stones once given for the use and good of
mankind, as an arm clothed in white samite rose above
the lake and received Excalibur.

Such a spot is an excellent introduction--lucus a non
lucendo--to the famous troubadour whose birthplace and
home it was, for nothing could be more unlike him.

There was little to approve in Raimon de Miraval, a
good deal to be amused by, and something to admire. He
was not really handsome, but somehow he got that repu-
tation, and nobody cared to throw doubt on his own good
taste by asserting the contrary. He was not actually
witty; but everybody was ready-primed with a laugh at
his sallies, and whoever crossed swords with him was
pretty sure of an audacious pinking in the ribs, with a
plenty of salt from the bystanders rubbed into the hurt.
There was always a suggestion of gun-cotton about his
love--much flare and little heat--as the woman he most
cared to please was very likely to reflect on the morrow;
but when the hall was filled and the lamps were all alight,
when the throng was gay and the wit lively, when the
tinkle of music was heard and the dance began, then brave
knights and serious troubadours found themselves dis-
tinctly outshone, and the lithe and slender Miraval--
trim, clever, graceful, and piquantly devil-may-care--was
for an hour the lord of the realm. ¹ Light of head, light
of heart, light of foot, a sweet singer, a skilful poet, an
artist in flattery and courtly banter, he could capture a
lady's fancy without half trying--to half try was, in fact,
his ablest rôle--and many more hearts were offered him
than he could possibly provide for.

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