So absorbed was he in his book that he did not hear an approaching footstep; but then it was a very light one. The young girl who came out from the parlour to join her brother was his senior by a year, and looked even more. She was tall, but her slight figure was well formed and graceful. Her eyes were dark, like her brother’s; and her hair a glossy brown, very fine and soft. It did not wave or float, but was neatly coiled about a head which might have served a sculptor for his model. There was no weakness in the delicate lines of her face, though there was much tenderness. Her complexion was pale; but there was in her cheek a hint of possible colour, which came and went with every passing emotion. No one thought of calling Clémence de Talmont pretty, but in the eyes of the few who loved her she was beautiful as the dream of a poet. “Henri,” she said, in a gentle but decided voice--“Henri.” He looked up slowly, and said with a reluctant air, “Surely it is not time for breakfast.” “Mother has had her coffee, and yours is ready whenever you wish for it. It is not _that_--” “I had rather wait,” said Henri, ignoring her last words. “I want to see the end of Pizarro’s expedition;” and he turned over a page of his book. “What are you reading?” asked Clémence, suppressing something like a sigh. “Les Incas de Marmontel--a beautiful book,” he added, rousing himself. “Those old heathen monarchs, who lived for their people, tried to make others happy, placed their glory in being loved, not feared, _ought_ to have had a better fate.” “I think _you_ might find a better book,” returned his sister, with a slight tinge of asperity. “Marmontel was a friend of the Revolution--a philosopher, a deist.” “Ah, sister mine, you would rather see me reading the Confessions of St. Augustine,” said Henri with a good-humoured laugh. “But there is a time for all things; and I cannot think ill of books that make me love God, and his beautiful world, and the creatures he has made.” “True, brother,” said Clémence earnestly and with a rising colour; “only take care that the God you love is the God of the Bible and the Church, not the God of the philosophers and the _savants_. But”--after a pause, and with a change of tone--“but, Henri, will you not run down to the village before our mother leaves her room, and see whether there is any placard on the Mairie?” Henri closed his book and stood up, the anxiety in his sister’s face reflecting itself, though faintly, upon his. “Why such haste?” he asked. “Babette told me this morning that she hears there is a new ‘senatus consultus.’” Henri’s thoughts turned rapidly from the mild sway of the Incas, of which he had been dreaming, to the iron despotism of Napoleon, for him no dream, but a stern and terrible reality. “If there were twenty conscriptions,” he muttered hastily, “you know I am under age.”