"

There was silence, for a minute or two, after Ralph ceased
speaking. The fact was, the thought that perhaps France might be
defeated had never once, before, presented itself to them as
possible. They were half disposed to be angry with the English boy
for stating it; but it was in the first place, evident now that
they thought of it, that it was just possible and, in the second
place, a quarrel with Ralph Barclay was a thing which all his
schoolfellows avoided.

Ralph Barclay was nearly sixteen, his brother a year younger. Their
father, Captain Barclay, had lost a leg in one of the innumerable
wars in India, two or three years before the outbreak of the
Crimean war. He returned to England, and was recommended by his
doctors to spend the winter in the south of France. This he did
and, shortly after his arrival at Pau, he had fallen in love with
Melanie Duburg; daughter of a landed proprietor near Dijon, and who
was stopping there with a relative. A month later he called upon
her father at Dijon and, in the spring, they were married. Captain
Barclay's half pay, a small private income, and the little fortune
which his wife brought him were ample to enable him to live
comfortably, in France; and there, accordingly, he had settled
down.

His family consisted of Ralph, Percy, and a daughter--called, after
her mother, Melanie, and who was two years younger than Percy. It
had always been Captain Barclay's intention to return to England,
when the time came for the boys to enter into some business or
profession; and he had kept up his English connection by several
visits there, of some months' duration, with his whole family. The
boys, too, had been for two years at school in England--as well as
for two years in Germany--and they spoke the three languages with
equal fluency.

A prettier abode than that of Captain Barclay would be difficult to
find. It was in no particular style of architecture, and would have
horrified a lover of the classic. It was half Swiss, half Gothic,
and altogether French. It had numerous little gables, containing
the funniest-shaped little rooms. It had a high roof, with
projecting eaves; and round three sides ran a wide veranda, with a
trellis work--over which vines were closely trained--subduing the
glare of the summer sun, casting a cool green shade over the
sitting rooms, and affording a pretty and delightfully cool
retreat; where Mrs. Barclay generally sat with her work and taught
Melanie,