oking men that would have graced a court. There
wasn't a prettier sight in Boston--and, dear me! that was way back in
'16 or '17. How time flies!"

They heard from Betty occasionally. The letters were long and "writ
fine," though happily not crossed. They should have been saved for a
book, they were so chatty. In August one came to Doris that stirred up a
mighty excitement. Betty had a way of being quite dramatic and leading
up to a climax.

A month before they had met a delightful Frenchman, a M. Henri de la
Maur, twenty-five or thereabouts, and found him an excellent cicerone to
some remarkable things they had not seen. He was much interested in
America and its chief cities, especially Boston, when he found that was
Betty's native town.

And one day he told them of a search he had been making for a little
girl. The De la Maurs had suffered considerably under the Napoleonic
_regime_, and had now been restored to some of their rights. There was
one estate that could not be settled until they found a missing member.
They had traced the mother, who had died and left a husband and a little
girl--Jacqueline. "That is such a common name in France," explained
Betty. She had been placed in a convent, and that was such a common
occurrence, too. Then she had been taken to the North of England. He had
gone to the old town, but the child's father had died and some elderly
relatives had passed away, and the child herself had been sent to the
United States. Everybody who had known her was dead or had forgotten.

"And I never thought until one day he said Old Boston," confessed Betty,
"when I remembered suddenly that your mother's name was Jacqueline Marie
de la Maur in the old marriage certificate. We had been talking of it a
week or more, but one hears so many family stories here in Paris, and
lost and found inheritances. But I almost screamed with surprise, and
added the sequel; and he was just overjoyed, and brought the family
papers. He and your mother are second- and third-cousins. It is queer
you should have so many far-off relations, and so few near-by ones, and
be mixed up in so many romances.

"The fortune sounds quite grand in francs, but if we enumerated our
money by quarters of dollars, we might all be rich. It is a snug little
sum, however, and they are anxious to get it settled before the next
turn in the dynasty, lest it might be confiscated again. So M. Henri is
coming home with us, and we shall start the first