t of the
letter,--

So I rode over to him, and found him on his back, fretting for want of
something to do. I told him the whole story. He undertook the business.
I have received his instructions, and next week shall be at his quarters
to clear off his arrears of business, and make acquaintance with all
your family, if they permit.

RAYNAL.

As the latter part of this letter seemed to require a reply, the
baroness wrote a polite note, and Jacintha sent Dard to leave it for the
commandant at Riviere's lodgings. But first they all sat down and wrote
kind and pitying and soothing letters to Edouard. Need I say these
letters fell upon him like balm?

They all inquired carelessly in their postscripts what he had decided
as their referee. He replied mysteriously that they would know that in
a week or two. Meantime, all he thought it prudent to tell them was that
he had endeavored to be just to both parties.

"Little solemn puppy," said Rose, and was racked with curiosity.

Next week Raynal called on the baroness. She received him alone. They
talked about Madame Raynal. The next day he dined with the whole party,
and the commandant's manners were the opposite of what the baroness
had inculcated. But she had a strong prejudice in his favor. Had her
feelings been the other way his brusquerie would have shocked her. It
amused her. If people's hearts are with you, THAT for their heads!

He came every day for a week, chatted with the baroness, walked with the
young ladies; and when after work he came over in the evening, Rose
used to cross-examine him, and out came such descriptions of battles and
sieges, such heroism and such simplicity mixed, as made the evening pass
delightfully. On these occasions the young ladies fixed their glowing
eyes on him, and drank in his character as well as his narrative, in
which were fewer "I's" than in anything of the sort you ever read or
heard.

At length Rose contrived to draw him aside, and, hiding her curiosity
under feigned nonchalance, asked him what the referee had decided. He
told her that was a secret for the present.

"Well, but," said Rose, "not from me. Edouard and I have no secrets."

"Come, that's good," said Raynal. "Why, you are the very one he warned
me against the most; said you were as curious as Mother Eve, and as
sharp as her needle."

"Then he is a little scurrilous traitor," cried Rose, turning very red.
"So that is how he talks of me behind my back, and call