It was quite a family party. Mademoiselle Lenoble was there, and papa. He arrived at the chateau while Gustave and I were paying our visit to the convent. He is in the highest spirits, and treats me with an amount of affection and courtesy I have not been accustomed to receive at his hands. Of course I know the cause of this change; the future mistress of Cotenoir is a very different person from that wretched girl who was nothing to him but a burden and an encumbrance. But even while I despise him I cannot refuse to pity him. One forgives anything in old age. In this, at least, it is a second childhood; and my father is very old, Lotta. I saw the look of age in his face more plainly at Cotenoir, where he assumed his usual _debonnaire_ man-of-the-world tone and manner, than I had seen it in London, when he was a professed invalid. He is much changed since I was with him at Foretdechene. It seems as if he had kept Time at bay very long, and now at last, the common enemy will be held at arm's-length no longer. He still braces himself up in the old military manner, still holds himself more erect than many men of half his age; but, in spite of all this, I can see that he is very feeble; shaken and worn by a long life of difficulty. I am glad to think that there will be a haven for him at last; and if I did not thank Gustave with my whole heart for giving me a home and a place in the world, I should thank him for giving a shelter to my father. And now, dear, as I hope to be with you so very soon, I shall say no more. I am to spend a day in Rouen before we come back--papa and I, that is to say; Gustave stays in Normandy to make some arrangements before he comes back to England. I cannot comprehend the business relations between him and papa; but there is some business going on--law business, as it seems to me--about which papa is very important and elated. I am to see the cathedral and churches at Rouen, and I shall contrive to see the shops, and to bring you something pretty. Papa has given me money--the first he ever gave me unasked. I have very little doubt it comes from Gustave; but I have no sense of shame in accepting it. M. Lenoble's seems to me a royal nature, formed to bestow benefits and bounties on every side. Tell Mrs. Sheldon that I shall bring her the prettiest cap I can find in Rouen; and, with all love, believe me ever your affectionate DIANA. BOOK THE SEVENTH. A CLOUD OF FEAR. CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF SORROW. Who heeds the cloud no bigger than a man's hand amidst a broad expanse of blue ether? The faint, scarce perceptible menace of that one little cloud is lost in the wide brightness of a summer sky. The traveller jogs on contented and unthinking, till the hoarse roar of stormy winds, or the first big drops of the thunder-shower, startle him with a sudden consciousness of the coming storm.