e doubt. With sombre heart he failed not to mark
every point of this all-human grace, but to him goddess-like beauty,
the triumph and glory of youth. The coy, dainty poise of the adorable
foot--pointed _so_--and treading the ground with the softness of a
kitten at play; the maddening curve of her waist, which a sacque,
depending from an exquisite nape, partly concealed, only to enhance
its lithe suppleness; the divinely young throat and bust; and above
all the dazzling black rays from eyes alternately mocking, fierce or
caressing.

Well might his hand be cold with all his young untried blood, biting
at his heart, singing in his head. Why did God place such creatures on
His earth to take all savour from aught else under the sun?

"Fair cousin, fair cousin, though I said serious admiration, I did not
mean you to look as if you were taking me to a funeral. You are
supposed to be enjoying yourself, you know!"

The youth struggled with a ghastly smile; and the father laughed
outright. But Madame de Savenaye checked herself into gravity once
more.

"Alas! _Nous n'en sommes pas encore la_," she said, and relinquished
her adorer's hand. "We have still to fight for it.... Oh! that I were
free to be up and doing!"

The impatient exclamation was wrung out of her, apparently, by the
appearance of two nurses, each bearing an infant in long, white robes
for the mother's inspection; a preliminary to the daily outing.

The elder of these matrons was Adrian's own old nurse who, much
occupied with her new duties of attendant to Madame de Savenaye and
one of her babies, now beheld her foster-son again for the first time
since his return.

"Eh--but you've grown a gradely mon, Mester Adrian!" she cried, in her
long-drawn Lancastrian, dandling her bundle energetically from side to
side in the excess of her admiration, and added with a laugh of
tender delight: "Eh, but you're my own lad still, as how 'tis!" when,
blushing, the young man crossed the room and stooped to kiss her,
glancing shyly the while at the white bundle in her arms.

"Well, and how are the little ones?" quoth Madame de Savenaye,
swinging her dainty person up to the group and halting by beaming
Sally--the second nurse, who proudly held forth her charge--merely to
lay a finger lightly on the infant's little cheek.

"Ah, my good Sally, your child does you credit!--Now Margery, when you
have done embracing that fine young man, perhaps you will give me my
child, _hei