"It was a sudden summons," she explained. "And we could not expect to know just when the child grew into a maiden. Therefore you will not feel hurt, that I, having a wider experience, prepared for the occasion. Let me arrange your costume now. I had this frock when I was of your age, though I was hardly as slim. How much you are like your father, child!" "I think he was a little hurt that I had nothing to honor you with," Jeanne said, simply. "Monsieur Loisel was saying that you needed a woman's hand, now that you were outgrowing childhood." She drew off Jeanne's plain gown; and though this was simple for the fashion of the day, it transformed the child into a woman. The long, pointed bodice, the square neck, with its bordering of handsome lace, showing the exquisite throat sloping into the shoulders and chest, the puffings that fell like waves about the hips and made ripples as they went down the skirt, the sleeves ending at the elbow with a fall of lace, and her hair caught up high and falling in a cascade of curls, tied with a great bow that looked like a butterfly, changed her so that she hardly knew herself. "O, Mam'selle, you have made me beautiful!" she cried, in delight. "I shall be glad to do you honor, and for the sake of M. St. Armand; but my father would love me in the plainest gown." Mam'selle smiled over her handiwork. But Jeanne's beauty was her own. She had grown many shades fairer during the winter, and had not rambled about so much nor been on the water so often. Her slim figure, in its virginal lines, was as lissome as the child's, but there was an exquisite roundness to every limb and it lent flexibility to her movements. A beautiful girl, Mademoiselle Fleury acknowledged to herself, and she wondered that no one beside M. St. Armand had seen the promise in her. The Sieur Angelot had been presented to the guest so lately returned from abroad. "I desire to thank you most heartily, Monsieur St. Armand," M. Angelot began, "for an unusual interest in my child that I did not know was living until a few weeks ago. She is most enthusiastic about you. Indeed, I have been almost jealous." St. Armand smiled, and bowed gracefully. "I believe I shall prove to you that I had a right, and, if my discovery holds good, we are of some distant kin. When I first heard her name a vague memory puzzled me, and when I went to France I resolved to search for a family link almost forgotten in the many turns there have been in the old families in my native land. Three generations ago a Gaston de la Touche Angelot gave his life for his religious faith. Those were perilous times, and there was little chance for freedom of belief." "He was my grandfather," returned the Sieur Angelot gravely. "We have been Huguenots for generations. More than one has died for his faith."