hough the younger,
is, it seems to me, the more thoughtful of the two. He is one I
feel I can have confidence in. He is grave, yet merry; light
hearted in a way, and yet, I think, prudent and cautious. It seems
strange, but I shall part with Francois with the more comfort, in
the thought that he has Philip with him.

"Don't come back more English than you are now, Marie; for truly
you seem to me to have fallen in love with the ways of these
islanders."

"I will try not to, Emilie; but I should not like the customs, did
it not seem to me that they are better than my own. In England
Protestants and Catholics live side by side in friendship, and
there is no persecution of anyone for his religion; the Catholics
who have suffered during the present reign have done so, not
because they are Catholics, but because they plotted against the
queen. Would that in France men would agree to worship, each in his
own way, without rancour or animosity."

"Tell Lucie that I am very sorry she did not come over with you and
Philip, and that it is only because you tell me how occupied she is
that I am not furiously angry with her.

"Tell her, too," she went on earnestly, "that I feel she is one of
us; still a Huguenot, a Frenchwoman, and one of our race, or she
would never have allowed her only son to come over, to risk his
life in our cause. I consider her a heroine, Marie. It is all very
well for me, whose religion is endangered, whose friends are in
peril, whose people are persecuted, to throw myself into the strife
and to send Francois into the battle; but with her, working there
with an invalid husband, and her heart, as it must be, wrapped up
in her boy, it is splendid to let him come out here, to fight side
by side with us for the faith. Whose idea was it first?"

"My husband's. Gaspard regards Philip almost in the light of a son.
He is a rich man now, as I told you, and Philip will become his
heir. Though he has no desire that he should settle in France, he
wished him to take his place in our family here, to show himself
worthy of his race, to become a brave soldier, to win credit and
honour, and to take his place perhaps, some day, in the front rank
of the gentry of Kent."

"They were worldly motives, Marie, and our ministers would denounce
them as sinful; but I cannot do so. I am a Huguenot, but I am a
countess of France, a member of one noble family and married into
another; and though, I believe, as staunch a Huguenot,