cies of raiment, fine
linens, and openwork silk stockings.

Rene, still laughing, met Schmidt in the hall.

"You were merry up-stairs."

"Indeed we were." And he gaily described his mother's unwonted mood; but
of the sacred future of the stays he said no word.

"And so our gray moth has become a butterfly. I think Mother Eve would
not have abided long without a milliner. I should like to have been of
the party up-stairs."

"You would have been much enlightened," said Miss Wynne on the stair. "I
shall send for the boxes, Mary." And with this she went away with
Margaret, as the doctor had declared was still needful.

"Why are you smiling, Aunt?" said Margaret.

"Oh, nothing." Then to herself she said: "I think that if Rene de
Courval had heard her talk to Arthur Howell, he would have been greatly
enlightened. Her mother must have understood; or else she is more of a
fool than I take her to be."

"And thou wilt not tell me?" asked the Pearl.

"Never," said Gainor, laughing--"never."

Meanwhile there was trouble in the western counties of Pennsylvania over
the excise tax on whisky, and more work than French translations for an
able and interested young clerk, whom his mother spoke of as a secretary
to the minister.

"It is the first strain upon the new Constitution," said Schmidt; "but
there is a man with bones to his back, this President." And by November
the militia had put down the riots, and the first grave trial of the
central government was well over; so that the President was free at last
to turn to the question of the treaty with England, already signed in
London.

Then once more the clamor of party strife broke out. Had not Jay kissed
the hand of the queen? "He had prostrated at the feet of royalty the
sovereignty of the people."

Fauchet was busy fostering opposition long before the treaty came back
for decision by the Senate. The foreign office was busy, and Randolph
ill pleased with the supposed terms of the coming document.

To deal with the causes of opposition to the treaty in and out of the
cabinet far into 1795 concerns this story but indirectly. No one was
altogether satisfied, and least of all Fauchet, who at every opportunity
was sending despatches home by any French war-ship seeking refuge in our
ports.

A little before noon, on the 29th of November, of this year, 1794, a
date De Courval was never to forget, he was taking the time for his
watch from the clock on the western wall of t