LOUIS DUVAL.

told were those of Chateau St. Clair. He was then
given into the care of an old housekeeper, who put
him in mind of his poor grandmother, only that she
was much stouter and more active; and, in a short
time, he was quietly sleeping in a small bed in one of
the upper rooms of the Chateau.
 From this time, for more than three years, the
 Chateau was Louis's home; and except that he often
 thought of his father, of whom he could never hear
 any tidings, he could not have had a happier home.
 The kind young Countess did not think it beneath her
 to take notice of the poor child whom she had saved
 from starving, and the Count also good-naturedly
 sometimes played with him in the great hall of the
 Chateau, and at other times made him his companion
 when he went shooting over his estate, or fishing in the
 beautiful and noble river-the Loire-which was not
 more than a mile from Chateau St. Clair. And Louis
 was glad to see that, however much of a tyrant the old
 Count had been, the young Count was greatly beloved
 by his tenants around, for whom he had always a kind
 word, and whom, so far as could be seen, he neither
 injured nor insulted.
 The servants at the Chateau, also, were kind to the
little fellow. Anthony, his earliest acquaintance among
them, taught him to read and write. One of the
grooms taught him to ride and manage a horse, and
one of the gamekeepers taught him to shoot with bow
and arrow, and promised in time to teach him to shoot
with a gun. Then there was an old priest who lived
at the Chateau as chaplain, who taught him Latin, and
joked with him sometimes about going to college; and
there were the old housekeeper and madame's maid,
who indulged him and petted him, partly, perhaps,
because they had no one else in the Chateau to indulge
 C