et me have my beads,' she said in a
grave, clear tone; and then first he beheld a pair of dark blue eyes,
a sweet wild-rose face--Dolly's all over. He pressed her so fast and
so close, in so speechless and over powering an ecstasy, that again she
repeated, and in alarm, 'Put me down, I want my mother!'

'Yes, yes! your mother! your mother! your mother!' he cried, unable to
let her out of his embrace; and then restraining himself as he saw her
frightened eyes, in absolute fear of her spurning him, or struggling
from him, 'My sweet! my child! Ah! do you not know me?' Then,
remembering how wild this was, he struggled to speak calmly: 'What are
you called, my treasure?'

'I am _la petite Rayonette_,' she said, with puzzled dignity and
gravity; 'and my mother says I have a beautiful long name of my own
besides.'

'Berangere--my Berangere---'

'That is what she says over me, as I go to sleep in her bosom at night,'
said the child, in a wondering voice, soon exchanged for entreaty, 'Oh,
hug me not so hard! Oh, let me go--let me go to her! Mother! mother!'

'My child, mine own, I am take thee!--Oh, do not struggle with me!'
he cried, himself imploring now. 'Child, one kiss for thy father;'
and meantime, putting absolute force on his vehement affection, he was
hurrying to the chancel.

There Philip hailed them with a shout as of desperate anxiety relieved;
but before a word could be uttered, down the stairs flew the Lady of
Hope, crying wildly, 'Not there--she is not--' but perceiving the little
one in the stranger's arms, she held out her own, crying, 'Ah! is she
hurt, my angel?'

'Unhurt, Eustacie! Our child is unhurt!' Berenger said, with an agonized
endeavour to be calm; but for the moment her instinct was so entirely
absorbed in examining into the soundness of her child's limbs, that she
neither saw nor hear anything else.

'Eustacie,' he said, laying his hand on her arm, she started back, with
bewildered eyes. 'Eustacie--wife? do you not know me? Ah! I forgot that
I am changed.'

'You--you--' she gasped, utterly confounded, and gazing as if turned to
stone, and though at that moment the vibration of a mighty discharge
of cannon rocked the walls, and strewed Philip's bed with the crimson
shivers of St. John's robe, yet neither of them would have been sensible
of it had not Humfrey rushed in at the same moment, crying, 'They are
coming on like friends, sir!'

Berenger passed his hand over his face. 'You will kno