e pride. For in the quiet of Rousillon
Claire had quickly recovered her peace of mind, and with it the light in
the eye and the rose-flush on the cheek.

But quite suddenly she put her hands to her face and began to sob.

If it had been the Abbe John, he might have divined the reason, but the
Professor was not a man advised upon such matters.

"What is it?" he said, stupidly enough; "are you ill?"

"Oh, no--no!" sobbed Claire; "it is so good to be here. It is so
peaceful. You are so good to me--too good--your mother--your
brothers--what have I done to deserve it?"

"Very likely nothing," said the Professor, meaning to be consoling; "I
have always noticed that those who deserve least, are commonly best
served!"

"That is not at all a nice thing to say," cried Claire; "they did not
teach you polite speeches at your school--or else you have forgotten
them at your dull old Sorbonne. Do you call that eloquence?"

"I only profess eloquence," said Doctor Anatole, with due meekness; "it
is not required by any statute that I should also practise it!"

"Well," said Claire, "I can do without your sweet speeches. I cannot
expect a Sorbonnist to have the sugared comfits of a king's mignon!"

"Who speaks so loud of sugared comfits?" said a voice from the other
side of the weather-stained rock, beneath which the Professor and Claire
Agnew were sitting looking out over the sea.

A tall shepherd appeared, wrapped in the cloak of the true Pyrenean
herdsman, brown ochre striped with red, and fringed with the blue
woollen tassels which here took the place of the silver bells of Bearn.
A tiny shiver, not of distaste, but caused by some feeling of faint,
instinctive aversion, ran through Claire.

Jean-aux-Choux did not notice. His eyes were far out on the sea, where,
as in a vision, he seemed to see strange things. His countenance, once
twisted and comical, now appeared somehow ennobled. A stern glory, as of
an angry ocean seen in the twilight, gloating over the destruction it
has wrought during the day, illumined his face. His bent back seemed
somehow straighter. And, though he still halted in his gait, he could
take the hills in his stride with any man. And none could better "wear
the sheep" or call an erring ewe to heel than Jean-aux-Choux. For in
these semi-eastern lands the sheep still follow the shepherd and are
known of him.

"Who speaks of sugared comfits?" demanded Jean-aux-Choux for the second
time.

"I did," said C