ing-place.

"Rain or shine," said Count Victor, delighting in such whole-souled
rapture, delighting in that bright, unwearied eye, that curious turn of
phrase that made her in English half a foreigner like himself--"Rain or
shine, it is a country of many charms."

"But now you are too large in your praise," she said, not quite so
warmly. "I do not expect you to think it is a perfect country-side at
any time and all times; and it is but natural that you should love
the country of France, that I have been told is a brave and beautiful
country, and a country I am sometimes loving myself because of its
hospitality to folk that we know. I know it is a country of brave men,
and sometimes I am wondering if it is the same for beautiful women. Tell
me!" and she leaned on an arm that shone warm, soft, and thrilling from
the short sleeve of her gown, and put the sweetest of chins upon a hand
for the wringing of hearts.

Montaiglon looked into those eyes, so frank and yet profound, and
straight became a rebel. "Mademoiselle Olivia," said he, indifferently
(oh, Cecile! oh, Cecile!), "they are considered not unpleasing; but for
myself, perhaps acquaintance has spoiled the illusion."

She did not like that at all; her eyes grew proud and unbelieving.

"When I was speaking of the brave men of France," said she, "I fancied
perhaps they would tell what they really thought--even to a woman." And
he felt very much ashamed of himself.

"Ah! well, to tell the truth, mademoiselle," he confessed, "I have known
very beautiful ones among them, and many that I liked, and still must
think of with affection. _Mort de ma vie!_ am I not the very slave of
your sex, that for all the charms, the goodness, the kindnesses and
purities, is a continual reproach to mine? In the least perfect of them
I have never failed to find something to remind me of my little mother."

"And now I think that is much better," said Olivia, heartily, her eyes
sparkling at that concluding filial note. "I would not care at all for a
man to come from his own land and pretend to me that he had no mind for
the beautiful women and the good women he had seen there. No; it would
not deceive me, that; it would not give me any pleasure. We have a
proverb in the Highlands, that Annapla will often be saying, that the
rook thinks the pigeon hen would be bonny if her wings were black; and
that is a _seanfhacal_--that is an old-word that is true."

"If I seemed to forget France and