n
the nerves of nations. That great sleeping Bear of the North roused
itself, and in its clumsy awakening put a heavy paw through the Treaty
of Paris. The Americans--our brothers in thought, speech and energetic
purpose--raised a great cry against us in that we had allowed the
ill-fated Alabama to leave our shores equipped for destruction. There
was a spirit of strife and contention in the atmosphere of the world.
Friendly nations nursed an imaginary grievance against their
neighbours, and those that had one brought it out, as a skeleton from
a cupboard, and inspected it in public.

In a school playground the rumour of a fight stirs latent passions,
and doubles many a peaceful fist. France and Prussia, grasping each
other by the throat, seemed to have caused such an electric
disturbance in the atmosphere of Europe, and many Englishmen were for
fighting some one--they did not care whom.

During this disturbed spring of 1871, Madame de Clericy and Lucille
returned to Hopton, where a warm and pleasant April made them admit
that the English climate was not wholly bad. For my own part, it is in
the autumn that I like Hopton best, when the old cock pheasants call
defiance to each other in the spinneys, and the hedgerows rustle with
life.

The ladies were kind enough to make known to me their amended opinion
of England when I went down to my home, soon after Easter; and indeed
I thought the old place looking wonderfully homelike and beautiful,
with the young green about its gray walls and the sense of spring in
the breeze that blew across the table-land.

I arrived unexpectedly; for some instinct told me that it would be
better to give Isabella no notice of my coming into her neighbourhood.
As I rode up the avenue I saw Lucille, herself the incarnation of
spring, moving among the flowers. She turned at the sound of the
horse's tread, and changed colour when she recognised me. A flush--I
suppose of anger--spread over her face.

"I have come, Mademoiselle," I said, "with good news for you. You may
soon return home now, and turn your back forever on Hopton."

"I am not so ungrateful as you persist in considering me," she said,
with vivacity, "and I like Hopton."

The gardener came forward to take my horse, and we walked towards the
house together.

"I am grateful to you, Monsieur Howard," said Lucille, in a softer
voice than I had yet heard her use towards me--and in truth I knew
every tone of it--"for all that you hav