inst the windows
before they fire?'

'I should prefer a different relative position for ourselves and the
beds,' said Louis, in his leisurely manner, as he advanced to look out.
'These are the friends of order, my dear aunt; you should welcome your
protectors. Their beards and their bayonets by gaslight are a grand
military spectacle.'

'They will fire! There will be fighting here! They will force their
way in. Don't, Virginia--I desire you will not go near the window.'

'We are all right. You are as safe as if you were in your own
drawing-room,' said Captain Lonsdale, walking in, and with his loud
voice drowning the panic, that Louis's cool, gentle tones only
irritated.

Isabel looked up and smiled, as Louis stood by her, leaving his aunt
and Virginia to the martial tones of their consoler.

'I could get no one to believe me when I said it was only the
soldiers,' she observed, with some secret amusement.

'The feather-bed fortress was the leading idea,' said Louis. 'Some
ladies have a curious pseudo presence of mind.'

'Generally, I believe,' said Isabel, 'a woman's presence of mind should
be to do as she is told, and not to think for herself, unless she be
obliged.'

'Thinking for themselves has been fatal to a good many,' said Louis,
relapsing into meditation--'this poor Paris among the rest, I fancy.
What a dawn for a Sunday morning! How cold the lights look, and how
yellow the gas burns. We may think of home, and be thankful!' and
kneeling with one knee on a chair, he leant against the shutter, gazing
out and musing aloud.

'Thankful, indeed!' said Isabel, thoughtfully.

'Yes--first it was thinking not at all, and then thinking not in the
right way.'

Isabel readily fell into the same strain. 'They turned from daylight
and followed the glare of their own gas,' said she.

So they began a backward tracing of the calamities of France; and, as
Louis's words came with more than usual slowness and deliberation, they
had only come to Cardinal de Richelieu, when Captain Lonsdale
exclaimed, 'I am sorry to interrupt you, Lord Fitzjocelyn, but may I
ask whether you can afford to lose any more blood?'

'Thank you; yes, the bandage is loosened, but I was too comfortable to
move,' said Louis, sleepily, and he reeled as he made the attempt, so
that he could not have reached his room without support.

The Captain had profited sufficiently by the Sister's example to be
able to staunch the blood, but not t