belief in the goodness of this world. This at least was Papa Legros' opinion.

Mme. Legros spoke less and less on the subject. She hoped.

She hoped resolutely and persistently, whilst the Kestyons from distant Virginia begged repeatedly for money. She went on hoping even whilst urging her husband to cut off further supplies, after ten years of this perpetual sponging. She still hoped whilst no news whatever came from the emigrants and when the rumour reached her that young Rupert Kestyon had died out there.

At this point, however, her optimism took a fresh turn. She hoped that the rumour was true, and that Rose Marie[22] was now free to wed some other equally high-born but more reliable gentleman. She continued to hope despite the difficulty of proving that the young man had really died, and Monseigneur the Archbishop's refusal to grant permission for a second marriage.

[22]

Then when the news filtered through from England as far as the back shop in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie that Rupert Kestyon was not only alive but had—by a wonderful, almost miraculous series of events—inherited the title and estates of his deceased kinsman and was now of a truth by the will of God and the law of his country milor of Stowmaries, and one of the greatest gentleman in the whole of England, Mme. Legros' optimism found its crowning glory in its justification.

That the young milor seemed disinclined to acknowledge the daughter of the Paris tailor as his wife and that he seemed to be taking serious steps to have the marriage annulled, were but trifling matters which never upset Mme. Legros' equanimity.

She was quite sure that the marriage could not be annulled without special dispensation from the Holy Father himself, and equally sure that that dispensation would never be granted. She had perfect faith not only in the sacred indissolubility of the marriage tie, but in the happy future of Rose Marie.

When Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris granted her Armand a special audience, whereat the tailor had begged permission to lay the family case before His Greatness, Mme. Legros never for a moment doubted the happy issue of that interview: and when her man came home and told his satisfactory tale, maman was in no way astonished.

Her optimism had been justified: that was all.

But what did astonish 

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