Phil, who is at a game of chess with Grace, pretends not to see this side demonstration; but his next move is to sacrifice his only remaining castle in the most needless manner. Dame Tourtelot, too, has pressed her womanly prerogative of knowing whatever could be known about the French girl who comes occasionally with Miss Eliza to her tea-drinkings, and who, with a native taste for music, is specially interested in the piano of Miss Almira. "It must be very tedious," says the Dame, "to be so long away from home and from those that love you. Almiry, now, hardly goes for a week to Cousin Jerushy's at Har'ford but she is a-frettin' to be back in her old home. Don't you feel it, Adeel?" (The Dame is not to be driven out of her own notions of pronunciation by any French accents.) "But don't be down-hearted, my child; it's God's providence that's brought you away from a Popish country." And she pushes her inquiries regarding the previous life of Adèle with an earnestness and an authoritative air which at times do not fail to provoke a passionate retort. To this the old lady is wholly unused; and condemning her straightway as a hot-headed Romanist, it is to be feared that we must regard the Dame henceforth as one disposed to look upon the least favorable lights which may appear, whether in the past history of Adèle or in the developments to come. The spinster, also, who is mistress of the parsonage, though never giving up her admiring patronage of Adèle, and governing her curiosity with far more tact than belongs to Dame Tourtelot, has yet shown a persistent zeal in pushing her investigations in regard to all that concerned the family history of her little _protégée_. She has lent an eager ear to all the communications which Maverick has addressed to the Doctor; and in moments of what seemed exceptional fondness, when she has toyed with the head-gear of Adèle, has plied the little brain with motherly questions that have somehow widely failed of their intent. Under all this, Adèle ripens into a certain reserve and individuality of character which might never have belonged to her, had the earlier circumstances of her life been altogether familiar to the circle in which she was placed. The Doctor fastens, perhaps, an undue reliance upon this growing reserve of hers: sure it is that an increasing confidence is establishing itself between them, which it is to be hoped nothing will shake. And as for Phil, when the Squire teases him with his growing fondness for the little Jesuit of the parsonage, the boy, though past seventeen now, and "with views of his own," (as most young men have at that age,) blushes like a girl. Rose, seeing it, and her eyes flashing with sisterly pride, says to herself,-- "Oh, I hope it may come true!" XXIX. From time to time Maverick had written in reply to the periodical reports of the Doctor, and always with unabating confidence in his discretion and kindness.