a lad
of eighteen was a slender reed to lean on in the time of trouble
and danger, and that it was only by a lucky accident--for saving
Robespierre's life was but an accident--that I have been enabled
to be of use to you; and that I have now a pass which will enable
me to take your sisters with comparative safety as far as Nantes.
Had it not been for that I could have done little indeed to aid
you."

"You must not say so, Harry. You are too modest. Besides, was it
not your quickness that saved Victor? No, we owe you everything, and
disclaimers are only thrown away. As for me, I feel quite jealous
of Jeanne's superior perspicacity, for she trusted you absolutely
from the first."

"It has nothing to do with perspicacity," Jeanne said. "Harry saved
my life from that dreadful dog, and after that I knew if there was
danger he would be able to get us out of it. That is, if it were
possible for anyone to do so."

"I hope I shall be able to justify your trust, Jeanne, and arrive
safely with you at my father's house. I can promise you the warmest
of welcomes from my mother and sisters. I fear they must long since
have given me up for dead. I shall be like a shipwrecked mariner
who has been cast upon an island and given up as lost. But my father
always used to say, that if I was a first-rate hand at getting
into scrapes, I was equally good at getting out of them again; and
I don't think they will have quite despaired of seeing me again,
especially as they know, by the last letters I sent them, that
you all said I could speak French well enough to pass anywhere as
a native."

"How surprised they will be at your arriving with two girls and
Louise!" Virginie said.

"They will be pleased more than surprised," Harry replied. "I have
written so much about you in my letters that the girls and my mother
will be delighted to see you."

"Besides," Jeanne added, "the boys will have told them you are
waiting behind with us, so they will not be so surprised as they
would otherwise have been. But it will be funny, arriving among
people who don't speak a word of our language."

"You will soon be at home with them," said Harry reassuringly.
"Jenny and Kate are just about your ages, and I expect they will
have grown so I shall hardly know them. It is nearly three years
now since I left them, and I have to look at you to assure myself
that Jenny will have grown almost into a young woman. Now I shall
go out for a bit, and leave you to c