new, whose blood
runs in your veins as well?"

"All of that I will do, _mon Capitaine_. I so enlist myself." And
as I spoke I drew myself up unto the greatest height possible to me.
"I will be of the army that feeds, rather than of that which kills."

"_Mon Dieu_, child, what is possible to you to do has no limit.
Also, I say to you, watch and be on your guard for aught that may harm
France. In America are spies. I have been warned. Also there are those
who practice deceptions in contracts. It is for the purpose to so
guard that I come to America."

"I also will so guard," I made answer to my Capitaine, the Count de
Lasselles, as we again came in our walk to the side of wee Pierre and
old Nannette.

CHAPTER II

VIVE LA FRANCE

And after that first day there were many hours that the Capitaine, the
Count de Lasselles, spent with little Pierre and the good Nannette, as
she sat knitting always with the sun on the water reddening her round
cheeks, while I had much pleasure with many friends who came to me
upon the ship.

A very fine young man who was named William Raines, from the State of
Saint Louis, instructed me in several beautiful dances, but I do not
think he was held in the esteem which he deserved by another of his
American brothers by the name of Peter Scudder, whose home was in the
town of Philadelphia.

"Dancing with Scudder must be like going to your grandmother's funeral
over the old State Road in a rockaway," was the comment that Mr.
William Raines made upon his friend Mr.

Peter Scudder, and what Mr. Scudder said of him was of the same
unkindness.

"Raines' dancing is extremely like Saint Louis: delightfully rapid but
crude," was his comment.

I should have been regretful of the unkindness between those two very
nice Americans but for a beautiful good to France that was brought
about by the desire of each to please me more than the other.

The many ladies upon the ship had been of exceeding kindness to me
because of the loveliness of small Pierre's dark face and the pity of
his crooked back. Old Nannette was of a very great popularity with all
of those ladies and she spent many hours in recounting the glories of
the old Chateau de Grez and Bye and the family which had inhabited it
since the fourteenth century. So it came about that many friends were
made for France among them.

Now that Mr. William Raines had a very nice idea to invite in my honor
all of the ladies who were friends