favourite to Harbundia,
Queen of the White Ladies of Brittany. For reasons--further allusion
to which politeness forbade--she had been a wanderer, no one knowing
what had become of her. And now the whim had taken her to reappear as
a little Breton peasant girl, near to the scene of her past glories.
They knelt before her, offering her homage, and all the ladies kissed
her. The gentlemen of the party thought their turn would follow. But
it never did. It was not their own shyness that stood in their way:
one must do them that justice. It was as if some youthful queen,
exiled and unknown amongst strangers, had been suddenly recognised by a
little band of her faithful subjects, passing by chance that way. So
that, instead of frolic and laughter, as had been intended, they
remained standing with bared heads; and no one liked to be the first to
speak.

She put them at their ease--or tried to--with a gracious gesture. But
enjoined upon them all her wish for secrecy. And so dismissed they
seem to have returned to the village a marvellously sober little party,
experiencing all the sensations of honest folk admitted to their first
glimpse of high society.

They came again next year--at least a few of them--bringing with them a
dress more worthy of Malvina's wearing. It was as near as Paris could
achieve to the true and original costume as described by the good Friar
Bonnet, the which had been woven in a single night by the wizard spider
Karai out of moonlight. Malvina accepted it with gracious thanks, and
was evidently pleased to find herself again in fit and proper clothes.
It was hidden away for rare occasions where only Malvina knew. But the
lady who had first kissed her, and whose speciality was fairies,
craving permission, Malvina consented to wear it while sitting for her
portrait. The picture one may still see in the Palais des Beaux Arts
at Nantes (the Bretonne Room). It represents her standing straight as
an arrow, a lone little figure in the centre of a treeless moor. The
painting of the robe is said to be very wonderful. "Malvina of
Brittany" is the inscription, the date being Nineteen Hundred and
Thirteen.

The next year Malvina was no longer there. Madame Lavigne, folding
knotted hands, had muttered her last paternoster. Pere Jean had urged
the convent. But for the first time, with him, she had been frankly
obstinate. Some fancy seemed to have got into the child's head.
Something that she evi