him--and to meet which
not training, nor habit, nor a moment's grave reflection had ever done
the slightest to prepare him; gazing, blankly and unconsciously, at the
dense pine woods and rugged glens of the Forest that sloped upward and
around above the green and leafy nest of Baden--he watched mechanically
the toiling passage of a charcoal-burner going up the hillside in
distance through the firs.

"Those poor devils envy us!" he thought. "Better be one of them ten
thousand times than be trained for the Great Race, and started with the
cracks, dead weighted with the penalty-shot of Poverty!"

A soft touch came on his arm as he sat there; he looked up, surprised.
Before him stood a dainty, delicate little form, all gay with white
lace, and broideries, and rose ribbons, and floating hair fastened
backward with a golden fillet; it was that of the little Lady
Venetia,--the only daughter of the House of Lyonnesse, by a late
marriage of his Grace,--the eight-year-old sister of the colossal
Seraph; the plaything of a young and lovely mother, who had flirted
in Belgravia with her future stepson before she fell sincerely and
veritably in love with the gallant and still handsome Duke.

Cecil roused himself and smiled at her; he had been by months together
at Lyonnesse most years of the child's life, and had been gentle to her
as he was to every living thing, though he had noticed her seldom.

"Well, Petite Reine," he said kindly, bitter as his thoughts were;
calling her by the name she generally bore. "All alone? Where are your
playmates?"

"Petite Reine," who, to justify her sobriquet, was a grand, imperial
little lady, bent her delicate head--a very delicate head, indeed,
carrying itself royally, young though it was.

"Ah! you know I never care for children!"

It was said so disdainfully, yet so sincerely, without a touch of
affectation, and so genuinely, as the expression of a matured and
contemptuous opinion, that even in that moment it amused him. She did
not wait an answer, but bent nearer, with an infinite pity and anxiety
in her pretty eyes.

"I want to know--you are so vexed; are you not? They say you have lost
all your money!"

"Do they? They are not far wrong then. Who are 'they,' Petite Reine?"

"Oh! Prince Alexis, and the Duc de Lorance, and mamma, and everybody. Is
it true?"

"Very true, my little lady."

"Ah!" She gave a long sigh, looking pathetically at him, with her head
on one side, and her lip