Maitresse Aimable spread the letter out and looked at it lovingly. Her voice rose slowly up like a bubble from the bottom of a well, and she spoke. "Ah man pethe benin, when it come, you are not here, my Jean. I take it to the Greffier to read for me. It is great news, but the way he read so sour I do not like, ba su! I see Maitre Damian the schoolmaster pass my door. I beckon, and he come. I take my letter here, I hold it close to his eyes. 'Read on that for me, Maitre Damian--you,' I say. O my good, when he read it, it sing sweet like a song, pergui! Once, two, three times I make him read it out--he has the voice so soft and round, Maitre Damian there." "Glad and good!" interrupted Jean. "What is the news, my wife? What is the news of highnesss--he?" Maitresse Aimable smiled, then she tried to speak, but her voice broke. "The son--the son--at last he is the Duke of Bercy. E'fin, it is all here. The new King of France, he is there at the palace when the child which it have sleep on my breast, which its mother I have love all the years, kiss her son as the Duke of Bercy." "Ch'est ben," said Jean, "you can trust the good God in the end." Dormy Jamais did not speak. His eyes were fastened upon the north, where lay the Paternoster Rocks. The sun had gone down, the dusk was creeping on, and against the dark of the north there was a shimmer of fire--a fire that leapt and quivered about the Paternoster Rocks. Dormy pointed with his finger. Ghostly lights or miracle of Nature, these fitful flames had come and gone at times these many years, and now again the wonder of the unearthly radiance held their eyes. "Gatd'en'ale, I don't understand you--you!" said Jean, speaking to the fantastic fires as though they were human. "There's plenty things we see we can't understand, and there's plenty we understand we can't never see. Ah bah, so it goes!" said Maitresse Aimable, and she put Guida's letter in her bosom. ....................... Upon the hill of Plemont above them, a stone taken from the chimney of the hut where Guida used to live, stood upright beside a little grave. Upon it was carved: BIRIBI, Fidele ami De quels jours! In the words of Maitresse Aimable, "Ah bah, so it goes." FINIS NOTE: IT is possible that students of English naval history may find in the life of Philip d'Avranche, as set forth in this book, certain resemblances to the singular and long forgotten career of the young Jerseyman, Philip d'Auvergne of the "Arethusa," who in good time became Vice-Admiral of the White and His Serene Highness the Duke of Bouillon.