be joyful to be able
to walk, and run, and do just as you please, without having a
gouvernante always with you to say, Hold up your head, Mademoiselle
Jeanne; Do not swing your arms, Mademoiselle Jeanne; Please walk
more sedately, Mademoiselle Jeanne. Oh, it was hateful! Now we
might run, mightn't we, Harry?"

"Oh, by the way, Jeanne, please call me Henri now; Harry is English,
and people would notice directly if you happened to say it while
anyone is near."

"I like Harry best," Jeanne said; "but, of course, I should not
say it before the people; but may we run just for once?"

"Certainly you may," Harry laughed; "you and Virginie can have a
race to the corner of that wall."

"Come on, Virginie," Jeanne cried as she started, and the two
girls ran at full speed to the wall; Jeanne, however, completely
distancing her younger sister. They were both laughing when Harry
came up.

"That is the first time I have run a race," Jeanne said. "I have
often wanted to try how fast I could run, but I have never ventured
to ask mademoiselle; she would have been horrified; but I don't
know how it is Virginie does not run faster."

"Virginie has more flesh," Harry said smiling. "She carries weight,
as we should say in England, while you have nothing to spare.

"And she is three years older," Virginie put in. "Jeanne is just
sixteen, and I am not thirteen yet; it makes a difference."

"A great deal of difference," Harry agreed; "but I don't think you
will ever run as fast as she does. That will not matter, you know,"
he went on, as Virginie looked a little disappointed, "because it
is not likely that you will ever race again; but Jeanne looks cut
out for a runner--just the build, you see--tall, and slim, and
active."

"Yes," Virginie agreed frankly, "Jeanne has walked ever so far and
never gets tired, while I get dreadfully tired; mamma says sometimes
I am quite a baby for my age."

"Here are some people coming," Harry said; "as we pass them please
talk with a little patois. Your good French would be suspicious."

All the children of the marquis, from their visits among the peasants'
cottages, had picked up a good deal of the Burgundian patois, and
when talking among themselves often used the expressions current
among the peasantry, and they now dropped into this talk, which
Harry had also acquired, as they passed a group of people coming
in from St. Denis.

They walked nearly as far as that town, and then turned and re