., made calls, and Pelagie had the
joy of wearing her shawl. For three days she astonished the natives by
promenading with her lord in a fresh toilette each day. On the fourth
they all piled into a big carriage, and went away to make a round of
visits, before the young people settled down at Boulogne.

The Americans never thought to hear any more of Pelagie; but, as dear
old Madame C. wrote to them several times after they left, the little
story may be finished here, though the sequel did not actually come till
a year later.

Many were the sage predictions of the Three as to the success of this
marriage--Amanda approving of that style of thing, Matilda objecting
fiercely to the entire affair, and Lavinia firmly believing in the good
old doctrine of love as your only firm basis for so solemn a bargain.

Wagers were laid that the fiery little Colonel would shoot some one in a
jealous fit, or that Pelagie would elope, or both charcoal themselves to
death, as the best way out of the predicament. But none of them guessed
how tragically it would really end.

Late in the following spring came a letter from Madame C., telling them
that Jules had gone to the war, and been shot in his first battle; that
Pelagie was with her mother again, comforting herself for her loss with
a still smaller Jules, who never saw his father, and, it is to be hoped,
did not resemble him. So little Pelagie's brief romance ended; and one
would fancy that the experiences of that year would make her quite
content to remain under mamma's wing, with no lord and master but the
little son, to whom she was a very tender mother.

Pleasant days those were in quaint old Dinan; for spring's soft magic
glorified earth and sky, and a delicious sense of rest and freedom gave
a charm to that quiet life. Legends of romance and chivalry hung about
the ruins of castle and _chateau_, as green and golden as the ivy and
bright wall-flowers that tapestried the crumbling walls, and waved like
banners from the turret tops. Lovely walks into woods, starred with pale
primroses, and fragrant with wild hyacinths; down green lanes, leading
to quaint cottages, or over wide meadows full of pink-tipped daisies and
dear familiar buttercups, the same all the world over.

Sometimes they took gay donkey-drives to visit a solemn dolmen in a
gloomy pine-wood, with mistletoe hanging from the trees, and the ghosts
of ancient Druids haunting the spot. The cavalcade on such occasions was