fixed on her face with an intentness that
savoured in no way, of awkwardness. She now broke the spell with a
broader smile and a word of greeting.

"You are surprised," said she in tripping words, tinged with a
distinct foreign intonation, "to see a strange face here, Mr.
Adrian--or, shall I say cousin? for that is the style I should adopt
in my Brittany. Yes, you see in me a poor foreign cousin, fleeing for
protection to your noble country. How do you do, my cousin?"

She extended a slender, white hand, one rosy nail of which, bending
low, Adrian gravely kissed.

"_Mais, comment donc!_" exclaimed the lady, "my dear uncle did you
chide your son just now? Why, but these are Versailles manners--so
gallant, so courtly!"

And she gave the boy's fingers, as they lingered under hers, first a
discreet little pressure, and then a swift flip aside.

"Ah! how cold you are!" she exclaimed; and then, laughing, added
sweetly: "Cold hands, warm heart, of course."

And with rapping heels she turned into the great hall and into the
drawing-room whither the two men--the father all chuckles, and the son
still struck with wonder--followed her.

She was standing by the hearth holding each foot alternately to the
great logs flaming on the tiles, ever and anon looking over her shoulder
at Adrian, who had advanced closer, without self-consciousness, but
still in silence.

"Now, cousin," she remarked gaily, "there is room for you here, big as
you are, to warm yourself. You must be cold. I know already all about
your family, and I must know all about you, too! I am very curious, I
find them all such good, kind, handsome people here, and I am told to
expect in you something quite different from any of them. Now, where
does the difference come in? You are as tall as your father, but in
face--no, I believe it is your pretty sisters you are like in face."

Here the Squire interrupted with his loud laugh, and, clapping his
hand on his stalwart son's head:

"You have just hit it, Cecile, it's here the difference lies. Adrian,
I really believe, is a little mistake of Dame Nature; his brain was
meant for a girl and was tacked on to that big body by accident, ho,
ho, ho! He is quite lady-like in his accomplishments--loves music, and
plays, by gad, better than our organist. Writes poetry, too. I found
some devilish queer things on his writing-table once, which were not
_all_ Latin verses, though he would fain I thought so. And as for
deportm