ead a movement for the restoration of the royal fugitive. For
what object? The regency was doomed. The king, a May-fly!"

"And so you refused?"

"We quarreled; he swore like a Gascon. His little puppet should yet
sit in the chair where Louis XIV had lorded it! I, who owed my
commission to his noble name, was a republican, a deserter! The best
way out of the difficulty was out of the country. First it was
England, then it was here. To-morrow--where?" he added, in a lower
tone, half to himself.

"Where?" she repeated, lightly. "That is our case, too."

He looked at her with sudden interest. "Yours is an eventful life,
Miss Carew."

"I have never known any other," she said, simply, adding after a
pause: "My earliest recollections are associated with my mother and
the stage. As a child I watched her from the wings. I remember a grand
voice and majestic presence. When the audience broke into applause, my
heart throbbed with pride."

But as her thoughts reverted to times past, the touch of melancholy,
invoked by the memory of her mother, was gradually dispelled, as fancy
conjured other scenes, and a flickering smile hovered over the lips
whose parting displaced that graver mood.

"Once or twice I played with her, too," she added. "I thought it nice
to be one of the little princes in Richard III and wear white satin
clothes. One night after the play an old gentleman took me on his knee
and said: I had to come, my child, and see if the wicked old uncle
hadn't really smothered you!' When he had gone, my mother told me he
was Mr. Washington Irving. I thought him very kind, for he brought me
a bag of bonbons from the coffee-room."

"It's the first time I ever heard of a great critic laden with
sweetmeats!" said the soldier. "And were you not flattered by his
honeyed regard?"

"Oh, yes; I devoured it and wanted more," she laughed.

Hans' flourishing whip put an end to further conversation. "Der stage
goach!" he said, turning a lumpish countenance upon them and pointing
down the road.

Approaching at a lively gait was one of the coaches of the regular
line, a vehicle of ancient type, hung on bands of leather and
curtained with painted canvas, not unlike the typical French
diligence, except for its absence of springs. The stage was
spattered with mud from roof to wheel-tire, but as the mire was not
fresh and the road fair, the presumption followed that custom and
practice precluded the cleaning of the coach. The passen