Before their eyes had recovered the blinding shock of the light coming suddenly on the darkness, a light foot was pattering down the stairs, and Franceline glided into the room. The effect was very much as if a lily had sprouted up from the carpet. An involuntary “God bless my soul!” broke from the admiral, and Clide started to his feet. “My daughter, messieurs,” said M. de la Bourbonais, with a sudden touch of the courtier in his manner, as he took her by the hand, and presented her to them both. Franceline bowed to the young man, and held out her hand to the elder one. The admiral, with an unwonted impulse of gallantry, raised it to his lips, and then held it in both his own, looking steadily into her face with an open stare of fatherly admiration. He had seen many lovely women in his day, and, if report spoke true, the brave sailor had been a very fair judge of the charms of the gentler sex; but he had never seen anything the least like this. Perhaps it was the unexpected contrast of the picture with the frame that took him so much by surprise and heightened the effect; but, whatever it was, he was completely taken aback, and stood looking at it speechless and bewildered. “Do you mean to tell me that this wild rose belongs to _him_?” he said at last, addressing himself to Sir Simon, and with an aggressive nod at Raymond, as if he suspected him of having pilfered the article in question, and were prepared to do battle for the rightful owner. “He says so,” averred the baronet cautiously. “He may say what he likes,” declared the admiral, “my belief is that he purloined it out of some fairy’s garden.” “And my belief is that you purloined that!” snubbed Sir Simon. “You never had as much poetry in you as would inspire a fly; had he, Clide?” Raymond rubbed his spectacles, and put them on again--his usual way of disposing of an awkward situation, and which just now helped to conceal the twinkle of innocent paternal vanity that was dancing in his gray eyes. “No, you usedn’t to be much of a poet when I knew you, De Vinton,” he said. “No more he is now,” asserted the baronet. “What do you say, Clide?” “The most prosaic of us may become poets under a certain pressure of inspiration,” replied the young man, with an imperceptible movement of his head in the direction of Franceline, who blushed under the speech just enough to justify the admiral’s wild-rose simile. She drew her hand laughingly away from his, and then, when everybody had found a seat, she pushed her favorite low stool close to her father’s chair, and sat down by his knee.