and."

Remembering what Annabel de Chaumont said about holy Sophie I inquired
if she had been religious.

"The Saint-Michels were better than religious; both mother and daughter
were eternally patient with the poor count, whose troubles unsettled his
reason. They had no dear old Ernestine, and were reduced to the hardest
labor. I was a little child when we came to America, yet even then the
spirit of the Saint-Michels seemed to me divine."

"I wish I could remember when I was a little child."

"Can you not recall anything?"

"I have a dim knowledge of objects."

"What objects?"

"St. Regis church, and my taking first communion; and the hunting, the
woods and water, boats, snowshoes, the kind of food I liked; Skenedonk
and all my friends--but I scarcely knew them as persons until I awoke."

"What is your first distinct recollection?"

"Your face."

"Mine?"

"Yes, yours, madame. I saw it above me when you came into the room at
night."

She looked past me and said:

"You have fortunately missed some of the most terrible events that ever
happened in the world, monsieur. My mother and father, my two brothers,
Cousin Philippe and I, were in prison together. My mother and brothers
were taken, and we were left."

I understood that she spoke of the Terror, about which I was eager to
know every then unwritten detail. Doctor Chantry had told me many
things. It fascinated me far more than ancient history, which my master
was inclined to press upon me.

"How can you go back to France, madame?"

"That's what I ask myself every day. That life was like a strange
nightmare. Yet there was our chateau, Mont-Louis, two or three days'
journey east from Paris. The park was so beautiful. I think of it, and
of Paul."

"And what about this country, madame? Is there nothing beautiful here?"

"The fact has been impressed on me, monsieur, that it does not belong to
me. I am an emigre. In city or country my father and Cousin Philippe
kept me with them. I have seen nothing of young people, except at balls.
We had no intimate friends. We were always going back. I am still
waiting to go back, monsieur--and refusing to go if I must."

It was plain that her life had been as restricted as mine, though the
bonds were different. She was herded with old people, made a wife and
mother while yet a child, nursed in shadow instead of in the hot
sunshine which produced Annabel de Chaumont.

After that we met each other as comrades meet