s, who lifts his
wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the
phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.

That was the King's invention, that sweet and dear surprise. Indeed,
he had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one seldom got a
glimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and those others always
standing in the light, and he so indolently content to save himself fuss
and argument and let them have their way.

At the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff
were with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private parlor,
brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about
Domremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be
kept till she came; and soon she came herself and sent her guard away,
saying she would take one of her father's rooms and sleep under his
roof, and so be at home again. We of the staff rose and stood, as was
meet, until she made us sit. Then she turned and saw that the two
old men had gotten up too, and were standing in an embarrassed and
unmilitary way; which made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as
not wishing to hurt them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down
between them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled
her own hands in them, and said:

"Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates as in other
times; for I am done with the great wars now, and you two will take
me home with you, and I shall see--" She stopped, and for a moment her
happy face sobered, as if a doubt or a presentiment had flitted through
her mind; then it cleared again, and she said, with a passionate
yearning, "Oh, if the day were but come and we could start!"

The old father was surprised, and said:

"Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these wonders
that make you to be praised by everybody while there is still so much
glory to be won; and would you go out from this grand comradeship with
princes and generals to be a drudging villager again and a nobody? It is
not rational."

"No," said the uncle, Laxart, "it is amazing to hear, and indeed not
understandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop
the soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I who
speak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest word that
ever I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could be explained."

"It is no