"_Bon jour, Mamzelle Henriette_"--this was all the French the Parson knew. And the lady would smile back and answer in English. "Good-morning, Parson Morth." "And Mamzelle Lucille?" "Ah, just the same, my God! All the day stare--stare. If you had known her before!--so be-eautiful, so gifted, _si bien elevee!_ It is an affliction: but I think she loves the flowers." And the Parson rode on with a lump in his throat. So two years passed, during which Mademoiselle Henriette tilled her garden and turned it into a paradise. There were white roses on the south wall, and in the beds mignonette and boy's-love, pansies, carnations, gillyflowers, sweet-williams, and flaming great hollyhocks; above all, the yellow monkey-blossoms that throve so well in the marshy soil. And all that while no one had caught so much as a glimpse of her sister, Lucille. Also how they lived was a marvel. The outlandish lady bought neither fish, nor butcher's meat, nor bread. To be sure, the Parson sent down a pint of milk every morning from his dairy; the can was left at the garden-gate and fetched at noon, when it was always found neatly scrubbed, with the price of the milk inside. Besides, there was a plenty of vegetables in the garden. But this was not enough to avert the whisper of witchcraft. And one day, when Parson Morth had ridden off to the wrestling matches at Exeter, the blow fell. Farmer Anthony of Carne--great-grandfather of the present farmer--had been losing sheep. Now, not a man in the neighbourhood would own to having stolen them; so what so easy to suspect as witchcraft? Who so fatally open to suspicion as the two outlandish sisters? Men, wives, and children formed a procession. The month was July; and Mademoiselle Henriette was out in the garden, a bunch of monkey-flowers in her hand, when they arrived. She turned all white, and began to tremble like a leaf. But when the spokesman stated the charge, there was another tale. "It was an infamy. Steal! She would have them know that she and her sister were of good West Indian family--_tres bien elevees._" Then followed a torrent of epithets. They were _laches-poltrons_. Why were they not fighting Bonaparte, instead of sending their wives up to the cliffs, dressed in red cloaks, to scare him away, while they bullied weak women? They pushed past her. The cottage held two rooms on the ground floor. In the kitchen, which they searched first, they found only some garden-stuff and a few snails salted in a pan. There was a door leading to the inner room, and the foremost had his hand on it, when Mademoiselle Henriette rushed before him, and flung herself at his feet. The yellow monkey-blossoms were scattered and trampled on the floor. "_Ah--non, non, messieurs! Je vous prie--Elle est si--si horrible!_" They flung her down, and pushed on.