"Eh bien! Legros, 'tis good news then?" she asked with cheerful optimism, whilst a benevolent smile shone all over her round face, red as an Eydam cheese and quite as shiny and greasy, for Madame had been cooking and she was mightily hot.

"The best, Maman," came in hilarious accents from her husband; "our daughter shall be installed in her English castle before many moons are over. The Holy Father himself will interfere, and this—this—milor Stowmaries will have to obey at once—failing which 'twill be excommunication and nothing less than that."

M. Legros had thrown himself into the tall-backed chair, black with age and the smoke from many a previous stewpot, and had stretched out his legs before him, in order that his dutiful daughter Rose Marie might the more easily divest him of his high out-door boots.

Kneeling before her father, she performed this little service for him with all the grace of loving girlhood, and he cocked his cropped head on one side and looked down at her with eyes in which merriment struggled with happy tears.

She was so good to look at as she knelt thus on one knee, her fair hair—touched with the gold of the sun of[5] her native Provence—falling in thick ringlets round her young face. She was so girlish and so pure, fresh as the hawthorn in May, and withal luscious to behold like a ripening fruit in June.

[5]

"Nay! nay!" said M. Legros with mock gravity, as he put his now stockinged feet to the ground and rose with a great show of ceremony; "this is no place for Madame la Comtesse of Stowmaries. She must not kneel at any man's feet, not even at those of her fond old father. Come to my arms, my girl," he added, once more resuming his seat, his voice breaking in the vain endeavour to seem flippant; "sit here on my knee. Maman, for the Lord's sake put down that spoon, and sit down like a Christian and I'll tell you both all that Monseigneur said to me."

With a happy little sigh Rose Marie jumped to her feet. Obviously her young heart was still too full for speech. She had said nothing, practically, since her first greeting to her father, since she had heard from him the good news—the confirmation of her hopes.

Her cheeks were glowing until they quite ached with the throbbing of the veins beneath the delicate skin, and the palms of her hands felt cold and damp with suppressed nervousness and excitement.

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