ated minds.

Kit had much information to give touching others in whom I was
interested. Of Mme. de St. Just he spake, as I would have expected,
with the warmest admiration and gratitude; but after he had informed
me that she was an inmate of the same convent in which we were, I
turned the conversation towards her brother, who, I learned, was
wounded sufficiently to be under the surgeon's care, and was pleased
to gather that Master Kit had made a respectable showing for himself
in the rescue of his Captain. That Mademoiselle de Sarennes was
much concerned in Nairn's condition I was glad to hear, as such an
interest could not fail to be of service when she should learn of
her brother's fate, of which I took care to make no mention, as I
had no desire to figure as the bearer of what must, to her, prove
painful tidings.

"Your Captain is fortunate to engage the sympathies of so fair an
enemy," was my only remark.

"Why, father, we do not look on them as enemies at all!" he returned,
with the ingenuousness of his years.

"Look you here, Master Kit, I cannot have you calling me 'father';
it has altogether too responsible a sound, and I do not wish to
begin and bring you to book for matters which may, later on, call
for a parent's judgment. Call me 'Chevalier,' if you like, it is
more companionable, and it is as comrades you and I must live,
unless you wish to have me interfering with you in a manner you
might naturally enough resent later on. I love you heartily my boy,
and it is love, not authority, I wish to be the bond between us.
What do you say yourself?"

"It can never be anything less than that, sir; you know how I was
drawn to you that very first morning, when I entered your room in
Wych Street; you were the finest gentleman I had ever seen."

"Well, you have seen better since, Kit."

"None better to me, sir." And he added, hurriedly, as if to cover
his emotion, "Will you come over to us, now that we are victorious?"

"Oh, Kit, Kit, you are a true Englishman! Victorious! Why, great
Heavens! We beat you fifty times over, only to-day! Not that it
will make any great matter in the long run, perhaps, for it is no
question of a single battle for either Levis or Murray, it is the
arrival of the first ships which will decide this affair. Wait
until they come up, and then it will be time enough to talk of
victory."

The lad's face fell. "I mean for ourselves," he said, wistfully;
"this can't go on with us on diff