or two days in Paris. My
head was still dizzy with the wonder and the brightness of it all. There
was something homelike, too, in it. The very first people I met seemed
to speak of my mother to me, as they flung out their hands and laughed
and waved, so different from our ways at home. I was to see more of
this, and to feel the two parts in me striving against each other; but
it is early to speak of that.

The evening was warm and bright, as we came near Chateau Claire; that
was the name of my friend's home. A carriage had met us at the station,
and as we drove along through a pretty country (though nothing to New
England, I must always think), Yvon was deep in talk with the driver,
who was an old servant, and full of news. I listened but little, being
eager to see all my eyes could take in. Vines swung along the sides of
the road, in a way that I always found extremely graceful, and wished we
might have our grapes so at home. I was marvelling at the straw-roofed
houses and the plots of land about them no bigger than Abby Rock's best
table-cloth, when suddenly Yvon bade pull up, and struck me on the
shoulder. "_D'Arthenay, tenez foi!_" he cried in my ear; and pointed
across the road. I turned, and saw in the dusk a stone tower, square and
bold, covered with ivy, the heavy growth of years. It was all dim in the
twilight, but I marked the arched door, with carving on the stone work
above it, and the great round window that stared like a blind eye. I
felt a tugging at my heart, Melody; the place stood so lonely and
forlorn, yet with a stateliness that seemed noble. I could not but think
of my father, and that he stood now like his own tower, that he would
never see.

"Shall we alight now?" asked Yvon. "Or will you rather come by daylight,
Jacques, to see the place in beauty of sunshine?"

I chose the latter, knowing that his family would be looking for him;
and no one waited for me in La Tour D'Arthenay, as it was called in the
country. Soon we were driving under a great gateway, and into a
courtyard, and I saw the long front of a great stone house, with a light
shining here and there.

"Welcome, Jacques!" cried Yvon, springing down as the great door opened;
"welcome to Chateau Claire! Enter, then, my friend, as thy fathers
entered in days of old!"

The light was bright that streamed from the doorway; I was dazzled, and
stumbled a little as I went up the steps; the next moment I was standing
in a wide hall, and a you