My sister and I had intended this
evening, after dinner, to blockade you into a little corner of the
drawing-room, and then she meant to tell you what I am going to try to
say for us both."

"But I am a little nervous. Do not laugh; it is a very serious matter. We
wish to thank you for having been, ever since our arrival here, so good
to us both."

"Oh, Miss Percival, pray, it is I who--"

"Oh, do not interrupt me, you will quite confuse me. I do not know how to
get through with it. I maintain, besides, that the thanks are due from
us, not from you. We arrived here two strangers. We have been fortunate
enough immediately to find friends. Yes, friends. You have taken us by
the hand, you have led us to our farmers, to our keepers; while your
godfather took us to his poor--and everywhere you were so much beloved
that from their confidence in you, they began, on your recommendation, to
like us a little. You are adored about here; do you know that?"

"I was born here--all these good people have known me from my infancy,
and are grateful to me for what my grandfather and father did for them;
and then I am of their race, the race of the peasants; my
great-grandfather was a laborer at Bargecourt, a village two miles from
here."

"Oh! oh! you appear very proud of that!"

"Neither proud nor ashamed."

"I beg your pardon, you made a little movement of pride. Well, I can tell
you that my mother's great-grandfather was a farmer in Brittany. He went
to Canada at the end of the last century, when Canada was still French.
And you love very much this place where you were born?"

"Very much. Perhaps I shall soon be obliged to leave it."

"Why?"

"When I get promotion, I shall have to exchange into another regiment,
and I shall wander from garrison to garrison; but certainly, when I am an
old commandant or old colonel, on half-pay, I shall come back, and live
and die here, in the little house that was my father's."

"Always quite alone?"

"Why quite alone? I certainly hope not."

"You intend to marry?"

"Yes, certainly."

"You are trying to marry?"

"No; one may think of marrying, but one ought not to try to marry."

"And yet there are people who do try. Come, I can answer for that, and
you even; people have wished to marry you."

"How do you know that?"

"Oh! I know all your little affairs so well; you are what they call a
good match, and I repeat it, they have wished to marry you."

"Who told you that?"

"Mo