swept back the fur rug in
gallantly respectful invitation; and, so soon as she ensconced herself on
the seat beside Henrietta, bending down he firmly and comfortably tucked
it round her. He declared, further, as she thanked him, it an honour in
any capacity to serve her, since had not Madame, but this moment, so
gracefully informed him of the commanding military career of the
Mademoiselle's father, possessor of that unique distinction the Victoria
Cross--a person animated, moreover, as Madame reported, by sincere
sympathy for the tragic sorrows of well-beloved and so now cruelly
dismembered France.

Damaris heard, in this singing of her father's praises, a grateful
reconciling strain. She found it profitable, just now, to recall the
heroic deeds, the notable achievements which marked his record. Her
coffee tasted the more fragrant for it, the butter the fresher, the
honey the sweeter wherewith she spread the clean coarse home-baked bread.
She ate, indeed, with a capital appetite, the long drive and stimulating
air, making her hungry. Possibly even her recent emotion contributed to
that result; for in youth heartache by no means connotes a disposition
towards fasting, rather does diet, generous in quantity, materially
assist to soothe its anguish.

This meal, in fact, partaken of in the open, alone with Henrietta,
object of her childhood's idolatry--the first they had shared since
those remote and guileless years--assumed to Damaris a sacramental
character, though of the earthly and mundane rather than transcendental
kind. Its communion was one of good fellowship, of agreement in
cultivation of the lighter social side; which, upon our maiden's part,
implied tacit consent to conform to easier standards than those until
now regulating her thought and action, implied tacit acceptance of
Henrietta as example and as guide.

Whether the latter would have found cause for self-congratulation, could
she have fathomed the precise cause of this apparently speedy conquest
and speedy surrender, is doubtful; since it, in fact, took its rise less
in the fascination of devotion given, than in that of devotion denied.
She happened to be here on the spot at a critical juncture, and thus to
catch the young girl's heart on the rebound. That was all--that, joined
with Damaris' instinctive necessity to play fair and pay in honest coin
for every benefit received.

So much must be said in extenuation of our nymph-like damsel's apparent
sub