at that Mr. Jefferson Whitworth and the other men of
wealth who with him were seeking to be robbers to my Country, were
first in consultation with themselves and then with my Uncle, the
General Robert, and also the Gouverneur Faulkner. Would their powerful
wickedness prevail and be able to force a signing of that paper on the
Gouverneur? Was that in their power, I asked of myself, and in my
ignorance I did not know an answer and had no person to demand one
from. There was no ease of heart to me, when the days went by and I
was so at work with my Buzz that I had no time for words from my
Gouverneur Faulkner or glance from those eyes of the dawn star. I
could only murmur to myself:

"_Vive la France_ and Harpeth America!"

CHAPTER XVI

"IMMEDIATELY I COME TO YOU!"

And so the time passed until the morning upon which the same railroad
train which had brought young Robert Carruthers down into the valley
home of his forefathers, arrived with yet another son of France and
his secretaries and servants. All were in attendance at the station of
arrival, from the Secretary of State, the General Carruthers, who in
his large car was to take the Count de Bourdon to the Gouverneur's
Mansion for immediate introduction, down to good Cato in a very new
gray coat and a quite shiny black hat.

"Stand right alongside, Robert," commanded my Uncle, the General
Robert, as he arranged with impatience a large white rose I had placed
upon the lapel of his very elegant gray coat. "I never did like
heathens. They make my flesh crawl. Be sure and repeat slowly all he
says, damn him!"

"He will speak to you in English very like unto that I use, I feel
sure, my Uncle Robert," I said with a great soothing.

"He will not, sir, he will not!" answered my Uncle, the General
Robert, with a great impatience. "Half the blood in your veins is the
good red blood I gave you, sir, and never forget that. Look what a man
it has made of you!"

"Yes, my Uncle Robert," I answered with a great sadness but also some
amusement. In my heart I prayed that always when I had left him he
would think that blood to be the good red blood of a man of honor and
not of a woman of lies. It might be that some day he would be proud
that still another man of his house had died in battle for France
and--never know.

It was while my eyes were covered with a mist of tears that I heard
the great railway train approaching, which was perhaps to bring me my
dishonor, and