"It seems a just return to France for her indifference to her splendid Colonies. And I have lived long enough to see if there are no fatal mistakes made, that this will be a grand country. From the depths of my heart I pray for her welfare." "And I fought for it," was the younger man's proud reply. De Ronville had hardly expected to see such a house as this. The aspect was undeniably French, heightened by the old furniture that he had been used to in his boyhood. His room was delightful. Barbe had taken out most of the girl's fancy touches, and odd things her grandfather Bradin had made, and left a grave aspect. Outside, everything was a-bloom, and a rose climbed up a trellis at the side of the window, shaking its nodding fragrant blossoms against the window-pane, and, when it was open, showering in its sweet silky leaves. They made friends readily. Great-grandfather Duvernay was the link between, and the women were more French than of any other race. It was almost supper time when Daffodil came in, leading her little brother by the hand. In him again the mother's type predominated; he was a fine, robust child, with a fearless, upright expression, and a voice that had none of the rougher tones of so many of the early settlers. But Daffodil! He studied her with a little wonder. For her abundant hair had not yet shaken off its gold, and lay in loose thick curls about her neck. Her complexion was of that rare texture that neither sun nor wind roughened, and all the care it had was cleanliness and the big bonnets of those days. Her features were quite regular, the nose straight, rather defiant, but the beautiful mouth, full of the most tantalizing curves, fun, laughter, sweetness, and the something termed coquetry in older women, that is not always experience either. She was slender and full of grace, tall for her age, but most girls grew up quickly, though she had not left the fairyland of childhood. "I am glad to see the darling of my old friend," smiling as he took her soft, dimpled hand. "I have always thought of her as a very little girl, sitting on the arm of her grandfather's chair----" "Oh, did he tell you that!" in her bright, eager tone. "Yes, and we used to talk--he told me so much about France and--it was your father--was it not? I thought you must be quite young;" and a faint touch of surprise passed over her face. "We were both set back in memory, it seems. And even I am getting to be quite an old man." "But I like old men," she said, with charming frankness, and a tint of color deepened in her cheek. "They are all old except father, and the men who come in to play games are wrinkled up, and some of them have white hair. I've had such a lot of grandfathers, and only one grandmother." "How did you get more than two?" "It was great-grandfather Duvernay," explained Barbe, "that made the third."