borne without complaint, but now joy comes, the tears
come also. Adolphe, my brother, you are more able to speak. Tell them.
I can no more."

She sunk down in a chair and covered her face with her hands.

Thus appealed to, Monsieur stood up at the end of the table facing the
sea, like one prepared to make a speech, took off his sailor hat, and
passed his hand thoughtfully over his closely-cropped head. Susan and
Sophia Jane, still puzzled and confused, stared up at him spellbound
without saying a word, deeply impressed. For suddenly there seemed to
be a change in Monsieur. He looked taller, and drew a deep breath like
one who is relieved from some oppression. It was as though a burden had
dropped from his shoulders, and set him free to stand quite upright at
last.

His grey eyes, though red with weeping, had a light in them now of hope
and courage, and he fixed them on the distance as though he were talking
to someone far away across the sea in his native country.

"My children," he said, "my sister has told you that we have borne our
troubles without complaint, and that is true. But they have been hard
troubles. Not only often to be hungry and very weary in the body--that
is bad, but there is worse. It is a sore thing to be hungry in the mind
and grieved in the spirit. To leave one's real work undone, so that one
may earn something to eat and drink, to have no outlet for one's
thoughts, to lose the conversation and sympathy of literary men. That
is a bondage and a slavery, and that is what a man who is very poor must
do. He must leave his best part unused, wasted, unknown. He is bound
and fettered as though with iron. But that is now past. To-day we hear
that we are no longer poor people. This letter tells me that I am now a
rich man. Free. Free to go back to Paris to take up again my neglected
work, to see my sister's adorable patience rewarded by a life of ease
and leisure--to see again my friends--"

Monsieur stopped suddenly, and Mademoiselle, clasping his hand,
immediately rushed in with a mixture of French and English.

"Oh, Adolphe! Adolphe! it is too much. Figure it all to yourself! The
Champs Elysees, and the Bois, and the toilettes and the sunshine. To
dine at Phillippe's perhaps, and go the theatre, and to hear French
words, and see French faces, and taste a French cuisine again. Nothing
more English at all! No more cold looks and cold skies--"

"Calm yourself, Delphine, my si