her, and Gothard
the little page was suitably clothed, she cared for nothing else. Her
thoughts were aimed too high to come down to occupations and interests
which in other times than these would doubtless have pleased her. Dress
was a small matter to her mind; moreover her cousins were not there to
see her. She wore a dark-green habit when she rode, and a gown of some
common woollen stuff with a cape trimmed with braid when she walked;
in the house she was always seen in a silk wrapper. Gothard, the little
groom, a brave and clever lad of fifteen, attended her wherever she
went, and she was nearly always out of doors, riding or hunting over the
farms of Gondreville, without objection being made by either Michu or
the farmers. She rode admirably well, and her cleverness in hunting was
thought miraculous. In the country she was never called anything but
"Mademoiselle" even during the Revolution.

Whoever has read the fine romance of "Rob Roy" will remember that
rare woman for whose making Walter Scott's imagination abandoned its
customary coldness,--Diana Vernon. The recollection will serve to make
Laurence understood if, to the noble qualities of the Scottish huntress
you add the restrained exaltation of Charlotte Corday, surpassing,
however, the charming vivacity which rendered Diana so attractive. The
young countess had seen her mother die, the Abbe d'Hauteserre shot down,
the Marquis de Simeuse and his wife executed; her only brother had died
of his wounds; her two cousins serving in Conde's army might be killed
at any moment; and, finally, the fortunes of the Simeuse and the
Cinq-Cygne families had been seized and wasted by the Republic without
being of any benefit to the nation. Her grave demeanor, now lapsing into
apparent stolidity, can be readily understood.

Monsieur d'Hauteserre proved an upright and most careful guardian. Under
his administration Cinq-Cygne became a sort of farm. The good man, who
was far more of a close manager than a knight of the old nobility, had
turned the park and gardens to profit, and used their two hundred acres
of grass and woodland as pasturage for horses and fuel for the family.
Thanks to his severe economy the countess, on coming of age, had
recovered by his investments in the State funds a competent fortune.
In 1798 she possessed about twenty thousand francs a year from those
sources, on which, in fact, some dividends were still due, and twelve
thousand francs a year from the r