y smiled.

CHAPTER II.

PRINCE CHERI.

"I'll take my guinea-pig always to church."
CHILD WORLD.

If it were cold just then in the thick-walled, well-warmed old house,
which was Jeanne's home, you may fancy _how_ cold it was in the rumbling
diligence, which in those days was the only way of travelling in France.
And for a little boy whose experience of long journeys was small, this
one was really rather trying. But Jeanne's cousin Hugh was a very
patient little boy. His life, since his parents' death, had not been a
_very_ happy one, and he had learnt to bear troubles without
complaining. And now that he was on his way to the kind cousins his
mother had so often told him of, the cousins who had been so kind to
_her_, before she had any home of her own, his heart was so full of
happiness that, even if the journey had been twice as cold and
uncomfortable, he would not have thought himself to be pitied.

It was a pale little face, however, which looked out of the diligence
window at the different places where it stopped, and a rather timid
voice which asked in the pretty broken French he had not quite forgotten
since the days that his mother taught him her own language, for a little
milk for his "pet." The pet, which had travelled on his knees all the
way from England--comfortably nestled up in hay and cotton wool in its
cage, which looked something like a big mouse-trap--much better off in
its way certainly than its poor little master. But it was a great
comfort to him: the sight of its funny little nose poking out between
the bars of its cage made Hugh feel ever so much less lonely, and when
he had secured a little milk for his guinea-pig he did not seem to mind
half so much about anything for himself.

Still it was a long and weary journey, and poor Hugh felt very glad when
he was wakened up from the uncomfortable dose, which was all in the way
of sleep he could manage, to be told that at last they had arrived. This
was the town where his friends lived, and a "monsieur," the conductor
added, was inquiring for him--Jeanne's father's valet it was, who had
been sent to meet him and take him safe to the old house, where an eager
little heart was counting the minutes till he came.

They looked at each other curiously when at last they met. Jeanne's eyes
were sparkling and her cheeks burning, and her whole little person in a
flutter of joyful excitement, and ye