eace."

"Miss Grantley," said Sarah Jorring when tea was over, and our governess
had "washed up" the dainty cups and saucers, "we don't want you to read
to us to-night, I think. You are to tell us a story instead, you know,
and it seems that there ought to be a history belonging to the Silver
Goblet."

"Yes, yes," we all cried out, "surely you know ever so much about it,
and if it's not a family secret, or if you don't wish to tell us"--

"Well," replied our governess laughing, as we all hurried to our
work-baskets and drew round the table which had been moved nearer to the
window, "as I can work and recite at the same time I may try to tell you
the only story I ever heard about this Huguenot Goblet; but mind it
isn't very romantic, and it isn't very cheerful. There is a love story
in it, though, and as girls are always supposed to prefer something of
that kind--though I have always found that girls are more interested in
the stories provided for their brothers than in their own books--I will
say on as well as I can."

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.

THE SILVER GOBLET.

THERE was a time when, on rare occasions, it flushed with the glow of
rare old wine spiced with fragrant spices; or, better still, held the
essence of odorous flowers distilled into subtle perfume. Need I say
that this goblet is "old silver?" It was in France that it held a place
of honour in the house. That house was one of note in Languedoc, not
that its owner was noble by birth, but he was of the great Protestant
families--the old Huguenots--whose undaunted spirit Louis the Fourteenth
could not quell, even with the fortresses that he built to frown them
into submission, or with the help of a fierce soldiery.

They were troublous times even long afterwards, when Anton Dormeur,
owner of looms and manufacturer of velvet, went about with a serious
face, and trusted few of his neighbours. Anton Dormeur was a man who
kept his own counsel, and, when the persecutions had for a time been
stayed, he saved money, hoping to rebuild the fortunes of his house for
those two daughters, who were but children when his wife died and left a
vacant place that never could be filled.

They were lovely--these girls--each in a different fashion. The elder,
tall, slender, dark-haired, haughty, with the complexion of a peach; the
younger, soft and fair, with locks that hung like silken skeins upon a
neck of snow, and eyes of that dark changeful