master--but I am not at liberty to tell you who has
taught me the little I know."

"Well, whoever he is I should be glad to have lessons from him."

"But you'll never get them."

"Why?"

"Because."

"A woman's ultimatum."

"As good as a man's!" she bridled prettily; "and sometimes better--at
the foils for example. Vous--comprenez, n'est ce pas?"

He laughed heartily.

"Yes, your point reaches me," he said, "but sperat et in saeva victus
gladiatur arena, as the old Latin poet wisely remarks." The quotation
was meant to tease her.

"Yes, Montaigne translated that or something in his book," she
commented with prompt erudition. "I understand it."

Beverley looked amazed.

"What do you know about Montaigne?" he demanded with a blunt brevity
amounting to something like gruffness.

"Sh', Monsieur, not too loud," she softly protested, looking around to
see that neither Madame Roussillon nor Jean had followed them into the
main room. "It is not permitted that I read that old book; but they do
not hide it from me, because they think I can't make out its dreadful
spelling."

She smiled so that her cheeks drew their dimples deep into the
delicately tinted pink-and-brown, where wind and sun and wholesome
exercise had set the seal of absolute health, and took from a niche in
the logs of the wall a stained and dog-eared volume. He looked, and it
was, indeed, the old saint and sinner, Montaigne.

Involuntarily he ran his eyes over the girl from head to foot,
comparing her show of knowledge with the outward badges of abject
rusticity, and even wildness, with which she was covered.

"Well," he said, "you are a mystery."

"You think it surprising that I can read a book! Frankly I can't
understand half of this one. I read it because--well just because they
want me to read about nothing but sickly old saints and woe-begone
penitents. I like something lively. What do I care for all that
uninteresting religious stuff?"

"Montaigne IS decidedly lively in spots," Beverley remarked. "I
shouldn't think a girl--I shouldn't think you'd particularly enjoy his
humors."

"I don't care for the book at all," she said, flushing quickly, "only I
seem to learn about the world from it. Sometimes it seems as if it
lifted me up high above all this wild, lonely and tiresome country, so
that I can see far off where things are different and beautiful. It is
the same with the novels; and they don't permit me to read them either;
but all