Mrs. McVeigh smiled. She rather liked to think her son not so susceptible as Frenchmen pretended to be. "I do not think there are any vows of allegiance," she confessed; "but there is someone at home to whom we have assigned him since they were children." "Truly? But I fancied the parents did not arrange the affairs matrimonial in your country." "We do not; that is, not in a definite official way. Still, we are allowed our little preferences, and sometimes we can help or hinder in our own way. But this affair"--and she made a gesture towards the door of her son's room, "this affair is in embryo yet." "Good settlements?" "Oh, yes; the girl is quite an heiress and is the niece of his guardian--his guardian that was. Their estates join, and they have always been fond of each other; so you see we have reason for our hopes." "Excellent!" agreed her friend, "and to conclude, I am to suppose of course she is such a beauty that she blinds his eyes to all the charms arrayed before him here." "Well, we never thought of Gertrude as a beauty exactly; but she is remarkably good looking; all the Lorings are. I would have had her with me for this visit but that her uncle, with whom she lives, has been very ill for months. They, also, are of colonial French descent with, of course, the usual infusions of Anglo-Saxon and European blood supposed to constitute the new American." "The new--" "Yes, you understand, we have yet the original American in our land--the Indian." "Ah!" with a gesture of repulsion; "the savages; and then, the Africans! How brave you are, Claire. I should die of fear." Mrs. McVeigh only smiled. She was searching through a portfolio, and finally extracted a photograph from other pictures and papers. "That is Miss Loring," she said, and handed it to the Countess, who examined it with critical interest. "Very pretty," she decided, "an English type. If she were a Parisian, a modiste and hairdresser would do wonders towards developing her into a beauty of the very rare, very fair order. She suggests a slender white lily." "Yes, Gertrude is a little like that," assented Mrs. McVeigh, and placed the photograph on the mantel beside that of the very charming, piquant face of a girl resembling Mrs. McVeigh. It was a picture of her daughter. "Only six weeks since I left her; yet, it seems like a year," she sighed; and Fitzgerald Delaven, who had entered from the Lieutenant's room, sighed ponderously at her elbow. "Well, Dr. Delaven, why are you blowing like a bellows?" she asked, with a smile of good nature. "Out of sympathy, my lady," replied the young Irishman. "Now, how can you possibly sympathize understandingly with a mother's feelings, you Irish pretender?" she asked with a note of fondness in her tones. "I sigh because I have not seen my little Evilena for six weeks."