I would give that vacant seat in the carriage to-day."

I cared no longer for my own loss, as I am afraid has been too much my
way all through life; or whether I was a prince or not. Like paradise
after death, as so many of our best days come, this perfect day was
given me by the marquis himself. Eagle's summer dress touched me. Paul
and Ernestine sat facing us, and Paul ate cherries from a little basket,
and had his fingers wiped, beating the cushion with his heels in excess
of impatience to begin again.

We paused at a turn of the height before descending, where fields could
be seen stretching to the horizon, woods fair and clean as parks,
without the wildness of the American forest, and vineyards of bushy
vines that bore the small black grapes. Eagle showed me the far
boundaries of Paul's estates. Then we drove where holly spread its
prickly foliage near the ground, where springs from cliffs trickled
across delicious lanes.

Hoary stone farmhouses, built four-square like a fortress, each having a
stately archway, saluted us as we passed by. The patron and his wife
came out, and laborers, pulling their caps, dropped down from high-yoked
horses.

But when the long single street of stone cottages which formed the
village opened its arms, I could see her breast swelling and her gray
eyes sweeping all with comprehensive rush.

An elderly man, shaking some salad in a wire basket, dropped it at his
feet, and bowed and bowed, sweeping his cap to the ground. Some women
who were washing around a roofed pool left their paddles, and ran,
wiping suds from their arms; and houses discharged their inmates, babies
in children's arms, wives, old men, the simplicity of their lives and
the openness of their labor manifest. They surrounded the carriage.
Eagle stood Paul upon his feet that they might worship him, and his
mouth corners curled upward, his blue-eyed fearless look traveled from
face to face, while her gloved hand was kissed, and God was praised that
she had come back.

"O Jean!" she cried, "is your mother alive?" and "Marguerite! have you a
son so tall?"

An old creature bent double, walked out on four feet, two of them being
sticks, lifted her voice, and blessed Eagle and the child a quarter of
an hour. Paul's mother listened reverently, and sent him in Ernestine's
arms for the warped human being to look upon at close range with her
failing sight. He stared at her unafraid, and experimentally put his
finger on her