"No, ma'am, no one. My mother told me on her death-bed. I needn't say the secret was kept from my grandfather and father. The women seemed to take a sort of devilish pride in even a left-handed connection with such a distinguished family." "Have you no pride in it?" "Yes, ma'am,--lots in this way. I'm getting on in years, and being lonely I kind of hanker after extending my trailers to other families, just like some old weed that's soon going to be rooted up." "You shall not regret telling me," she said, brokenly, "though it is one more load for me to carry. Man, I am very unhappy." "I know it," he said, under his breath. She took a swift resolution. There was something in this man,--she did not know what it was,--possibly it was the tie of blood, possibly because in him she felt the French life and vivacity, and tenacity of purpose under seeming frivolity that was so strongly akin to her family, and so unlike the cold, frigid resolution of Justin, the descendant of the Puritans. At any rate, she liked him, liked him far better than the more polished Justin, and without resolving to entrust her secret to him, she yet started to play the dangerous game of recalling her lost brother to his memory. "It is your cousin's," she said, suddenly, holding up the ring. "It belonged to my unhappy brother Louis. Do you remember him?" "Am I likely to forget my relations?" he said, keenly. "There is not a man Jack nor a woman Jill of all the Gastonguays that I've not watched. Yes, I call up your brother Louis, the gamiest of the lot. He used to stone me, because his friends said I favoured him. Once I fetched him a sly snowball behind the ear, but I didn't put a stone in it because he was of my blood-- Hold on a minute, for mercy sakes, ma'am. Hold on--hold on!" Miss Gastonguay drew back. Was there a snake in her path that this excitable man behaved so strangely? They were close to one of the rustic seats placed at intervals along the walks of the wood, and on one of the seats he suddenly sank, guarding his eyes with one bandaged hand and stretching out the other as if to keep her away. "Oh, crimini fish skins!" he ejaculated. "I see it now. What a fool I have been! That little chirrup of a girl harping on my look of her father--old Sylvester's visits to the prison--I see it now, I see it now. I thank you, ma'am," and, springing up, he seized Miss Gastonguay's hand and shook it warmly. "Get out with you!" she said. "Do you want to call attention to us?" and yet she was not annoyed, but rather gratified, and watched with pleasure the rapidity with which his mind ran back along the thread of recollection she had given him. "Louis running away--Louis missing--Louis said to be dead, not dead but living, and cutting up as usual. Under Sylvester's wide-spread wing--Justin's darling--Justin's father-in-law. All very natural. Thank you, ma'am, thank you. I'm glad Derrice dropped that watch. Tell me some more,--tell me some more."