Van Heldre looked at his daughter. Madelaine looked at her father, and they thoroughly read each other's thoughts, the girl's bright grey eyes saying to him as plainly as could be--"You are quite right." "Well," said Van Heldre to himself, as he placed a spoonful of black currant jam on his plate, and then over that two piled-up table-spoonfuls of clotted cream--"she's as nice and true-hearted a girl as ever stepped, and Leslie's a man, every inch of him. I'd have said _yes_ in a moment if he had wanted my girl. I'm glad of it; but, poor fellow, what he'll have to suffer from that terrible old woman!" He had just thought this, and was busy composing a _nocturne_ or a _diurne_--probably the latter from its tints of red and yellow--upon his plate, which flowed with jam and cream, when Aunt Marguerite, who had eaten all she wished, began to stir her tea with courtly grace, and raised her voice in continuation of something she had been saying, but it was twenty-four hours before. "Yes, Mr Pradelle," she said, so that every one should hear; "my memories of the past are painful, and yet a delight. We old Huguenots are proud of our past." "You must be, madam." "And you too," said the lady. "I feel sure that if you will take the trouble you will find that I am right. The Pradelles must have been of our people." "I'll look into it as soon as I get back to town," said the young man. Harry gave him a very vulgar wink. "Do," said Aunt Marguerite. "By the way, I don't think I told you that though my brother persists in calling himself Vine, our name is Des Vignes, and we belong to one of the oldest families in Auvergne." "Yes, that's right, Mr Pradelle," said the host, nodding pleasantly; "but when a cruel persecution drove us over here, and old England held out her arms to us, and we found a kindly welcome--" "My dear George!" interposed Aunt Marguerite. "Let me finish, my dear," said Mr Vine, good-temperedly. "It's Mr Pradelle's last evening here." "For the present, George, for the present." "Ah, yes, of course, for the present, and I should like him to hear my version too." Aunt Marguerite tapped the back of her left hand with her fan impatiently. "We found here a hearty welcome and a home," continued Mr Vine, "and we said we can never--we will never--return to the land of fire and the sword; and then we, some of us poor, some of us well-to-do, settled down among our English brothers, and thanked God that in this new Land of Canaan we had found rest." "And my dear Mr Pradelle," began Aunt Marguerite, hastily; but Mr Vine was started, and he talked on.