France and Britain were still, as we last left them twenty-one years ago, engaged in the lively and profitable occupation of fighting battles, battering fleets and burning towns in America, where the subject of taxation had occasioned hostilities between the mother country and her colonies, whose forces, led by Washington, were aided in the strife by the armies and fleets of France, Spain, and Holland. Some days elapsed before the young officer, who was on his parole of honour, had sufficiently recovered to appear on the terrace of the chateau, where Mademoiselle Therese and the gossiping Nanon received him in due form. He was pale and thin from the effects of a wound, his long sea voyage, and the severe treatment to which prisoners of war were usually subjected in those days; but all this only served to make him the more interesting to the two girls, who were quite flattered by the presence of the chance visitor fortune had sent them to enliven the old chateau. His uniform was sorely dilapidated; the lace and epaulettes of his scarlet coat were blackened by powder and long service, and it consorted oddly with a pair of French hussar pantaloons. Still, notwithstanding these disadvantages, his bearing was free, gallant, and gentlemanly; and in very good French he thanked the lady of Fontbrune for her humanity and hospitality. "May I ask your name, monsieur?" asked Therese, timidly. "Munro--Hector Munro." "And your regiment?" "The Black Watch--Ecossais." "Oh, indeed," said Therese, with her dark eyes brightening; for to belong to a Scottish regiment in those days (and even in the _present_) was as sure a guide to French favour as if he could have answered, "The Irish Brigade." "And you were taken prisoner----" "In America, mademoiselle, on the Acushnet River, where my regiment was serving with the brigades of grenadiers and light infantry then ordered to destroy a number of pirates who made New Plymouth their haunt. This we achieved successfully, but not without severe loss." "Were you not dreadfully frightened?" "I was then under fire for the _first_ time," said the young officer, smiling. "And how did you feel--oh, pray tell me?" "A tightening of the breast--a long-drawn breath, as the _first_ shot whizzed past my ear; another as the first cannon-ball seemed to scream in the air overhead, and then I rushed on fearless, filled by a fierce and tumultuous joy. I heard only the din of the bagpipes and the cheers of my comrades. But I lost my way in the wood, and falling among a detachment of the Regiment of Languedoc, was made a prisoner. With many others in the same predicament, I was soon shipped off for France, and so have the honour to appear before you." "And who was the soldier for whom you risked your life?" "A sergeant of the Regiment of Languedoc." "A Frenchman!" "Yes, mademoiselle; the same man who made me prisoner in America." "Ah, mon Dieu! and you tried to save him! How noble!"