"Thanks to your early training," said Ella, smiling; "but if for centuries you had never been allowed to stand or walk without leading-strings, supports, restraints on the right hand and on the left, and had then been suddenly set free, with all accustomed stays wrenched from you, do you think you would not have stumbled and fallen like your neighbors?" "True, O queen! but why did not our neighbors begin to train themselves in time? They are of different stuff; there lies the key to the puzzle." "And in the might of circumstance," put in Ella. "You can never thank Heaven enough for your insular position; but there _is_ something in race." "No doubt of it. Look at this man coming toward us; you could never mistake him for anything but a Briton." "No, indeed!" exclaimed Ella; "and"--drawing a little near to him--"is it not your cousin, St. George Wilton?" "By Jove! you are right, Ella. What can bring him here?" The object of their remark was facing them as the colonel ceased to speak. "Ralph Wilton--Miss--" St. George stopped himself in his exclamation, and then continued, raising his hat with a soft but meaning smile, "I little thought I should encounter you in this remote region!" "Nor I you," returned Wilton, bluntly. "Mrs. Wilton and I have been staying near this, at a place called Vigères, where there is very tolerable fishing, and drove over this morning to look at this old town. What brings you so far from the haunts of men?" "The vagaries of an old woman, if it be not too irreverend to say so," replied St. George, raising his hat again with profound respect as his cousin pronounced the words "Mrs. Wilton." "I have an aged aunt who, for some inscrutable reason, chooses to mortify her flesh and spare her pocket by residing here. I never dreamed I should meet with such a vision of happiness as--Mrs. Wilton and yourself in this fossilized place." There was just a slight, significant pause before the name "Mrs. Wilton," which caught her husband's ear, and it sounded to him like a veiled suspicion. "Where are you staying?" he asked. "Oh, at the Hôtel du Nord. My aunt wishes the pleasure of a visit from me, but declines to put me up." "We are just going to dine at your hotel," said Colonel Wilton, "and will be very happy if you will join us." St. George accepted his cousin's invitation with his best air of frank cordiality. It was a very pleasant dinner; nothing could be more agreeable than the accomplished _attaché_. His tone of cousinly courtesy to Ella was perfect; his air of well-regulated enjoyment positively exhilarating. Wilton never thought he should like his kinsman's society so much. Even Ella warmed to him comparatively, and, though more disposed to listen than to talk, contributed no small share to the brightness of the conversation.