o, had been captured by the sweet French tongue he loved.

"They have some means," he added, "and I shall see about the young man.
He seems more English than French, a staid young fellow. You may make a
Quaker of him, Mary."

"Thou art foolish, Hugh Wynne; but I will take them."

Then the perverted Secretary of State went away. Mrs. Swanwick, still in
search of literature, received an innocent book called "The Haunted
Priory, or the Fortunes of the House of Almy." There were pleasant
introductions, and, to De Courval's satisfaction, their baggage would be
taken in charge, a chaise sent in the afternoon for his mother and
himself, and for terms--well, that might bide awhile until they saw if
all parties were suited. The widow, pleased to oblige her old friend,
had still her reserve of doubt and some thought as to what might be said
by her permanent inmate, Mr. Johann Schmidt.

III

On reaching Mrs. Swanwick's home in the afternoon, the vicomtesse went
at once to her room, where the cleanliness and perfect order met her
tacit approval, and still more the appetizing meal which the hostess
herself brought to the bedside of her tired guest.

Mr. Schmidt, the other boarder, was absent at supper, and the evening
meal went by with little talk beyond what the simple needs of the meal
required. De Courval excused himself early and, after a brief talk with
his mother, was glad of a comfortable bed, where he found himself
thinking with interest of the day's small events and of the thin, ruddy
features, bright, hazel eyes and red hair, of the tall Virginia
statesman, the leader of the party some of whose baser members had given
the young vicomte unpleasant minutes at Oeller's Hotel.

When very early the next day De Courval awakened and looked eastward
from his room in the second story of Mrs. Swanwick's home, he began to
see in what pleasant places his lot was cast. The house, broad and
roomy, had been a country home. Now commerce and the city's growth were
contending for Front Street south of Cedar, but being as yet on the edge
of the town, the spacious Georgian house, standing back from the
street, was still set round with ample gardens, on which just now fell
the first sunshine of the May morning. As De Courval saw, the ground at
the back of the house fell away to the Delaware River. Between him and
the shore were flowers, lilacs in bloom, and many fruit-trees. Among
them, quite near by, below the window, a tall, b