Our musician, or fiddler, kept away from some petty pique, and we were accordingly reduced to the hard necessity of making use of a drum and whistling, both to keep up our spirits and serve up the quadrilles.

This growing hatred of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique.

'It is,' he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them.

"If you think, Robert," continued Mrs. Willoughby, "that Maud has forgotten you, or shown pique for any little former misunderstanding, during your last absence, you do her injustice.

"Methinks," she says, in pique, against her will, "The beautiful Ettonne looks for her knight; It scarce seems chivalrous to leave her thus.

Was not her refusal to attend the ball perhaps due to some sudden pique or unpleasantness with her giddy stepmother?

I went one day with a friend of mine to a pique-nique party at the Cascino, where a laughable adventure occurred perfectly in the stile of the novelle of Boccacio.

Was that pique?

It was the result of a very peculiar condition of things, in which he regretted having taken a part, and it was given in a moment of pique and indignation, which gave Miss March a right to reconsider her hasty decision, if she chose to do so.

After all, was that acceptance anything more than the result of pique?

Of late, indeed, she had been much more frightened than attracted by the conduct of her admirer, and really felt it a relief, notwithstanding her pique, when he retired into a less demonstrative state.

It looked like pride, pique, mere wanton destruction; but it was a great idea.

Curiosity grew into interest, and, flavoured with a dash of pique, formed one of those messes with which, in stimulating their vanity, women fancy they satisfy their hunger of the heart.

She disengaged herself from his hands, decisively, indeed, yet without any air of pique.

"Monsieur la trouve bien séduisante apparemment" said the stranger, in a low, rapid voice, to the gentleman, in a manner which showed a mingling of pique and admiration.

That would not last; but his cunning told him that with returning sensibility would come pique, resentment, the desire to be avenged.

Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the tool readiest to hand.

Richard, in pique, urged his horse violently against the French knight, in order to make him lose his stirrups; but William kept a firm seat, whilst the king fell under his horse, which came down in his impetuosity.

The French pique themselves on being a gayer nation than the English; but they certainly must exclude their mornings from the account, for the forlorn and neglected figure of a Frenchman till dinner is a very antidote to chearfulness, especially if contrasted with the animation of our countrymen, whose forenoon is passed in riding or walking, and who make themselves at least decent before they appear even in their own families.

CHAPTER XLVI THE PIQUE-EN-TERRE LOSES ONE OF HER CREW Ask the average resident of New Orleans if his town is on an island, and he will tell you no.

The crew of the Pique-en-terre saw all these and felt them; for, whatever they may have been or failed to be, they were men whose heartstrings responded to the touches of nature.

It is known to those on board the Pique-en-terre, the moment it is descried, as the canvas of a large schooner.

The Pique-en-terre was going about close abreast of the schooner, and angry questions and orders were flying at Raoul's head like a volley of eggs.

The Pique-en-terre turned, and with a little flutter spread her smooth wing and skimmed away.

Justina saw curiosity, too, but none was expressed; she only said, with the least little touch of pique, "And you never told me that you were wishing so much to go away.