erself the
airs of a princess toward him, which Gaston hotly resented; the more
so, as her fortune would seem to put her out of his reach. This
invariably ended by Francezka's bringing the whole battery of her
smiles and even her tears to bear on him, so that he was obliged to
make an unconditional surrender.

The resemblance between the Chevernys had grown stronger, as Gaston
lost his boyish look and became more the man of the world. The rest of
us often mistook one for the other of them, coming upon them in dark
places, or at a little distance; and sometimes by changing clothes and
horses, they diverted themselves at our expense; but Francezka always
knew them apart, and never once mistook one for the other.

Old Peter seemed to feel a secret grudge against Regnard Cheverny for
acquiring Castle Haret. The old serving-man's devotion to Jacques
Haret was touching.

"Sometimes it is years that I do not see him," he said to me; "but
always, when I do, it is the same greeting--'Well, Peter, my man, here
is your old master's son,' and a real embrace, such as gentlefolk give
each other."

"And if you happen to have any money about you, do you not hand it
over to Jacques Haret?" I asked.

Peter started, looked at me suspiciously and relapsed into sullen
silence. I made no doubt that these few careless words of kindness and
that condescending embrace were paid for in good, round, solid, yellow
gold pieces, for Peter got good wages and was saving of them.

He talked with me often about his niece, Lisa, and told me a pitiful
tale of having brought up two of Lisa's sisters--beautiful, unstable
creatures, who might have married well, in their own humble class, but
who went to the bad, each before her eighteenth year. The saddest
part of it was that this old man reproached himself continually with
some fancied carelessness on his part, that had driven these girls to
ruin. But I believe the only fault he could reproach himself with was
the same spirit of uncalculating devotion which had made him help
Francezka in her escapade in the open-air theater, and made him hand
over his humble wages to that rascal, Jacques Haret. Whenever I taxed
him with this, he feebly denied the gift, calling it a loan; but loans
to the Jacques Harets of this world are compulsory gifts.

Of Lisa, however, all good things were expected. He was never weary of
telling me of her goodness, her gentleness, the impossibility that she
should follow the ro