"Yes, sir--the children. I was but fifteen when I left France." "Then you now own to eighteen years." "Yes, sir." "A venerable age." At that she lifted her brown eyes. I smiled; and that enchanting, glimmering smile touched her lips again. And I thought of what I had heard concerning her in Caughnawaga, and how, when the old gentleman was enjoying his afternoon nap, she was accustomed to take her knitting to the porch. And I remembered, too, what Nick and others said concerning all the gallants of the countryside, how they swarmed about that porch like flies around a sap-pan. "I have been told," said I, "that all young men in Tryon sit ringed around you when you take your knitting to the porch at Cayadutta Lodge. Nor can I blame them, now that I have seen you smile." At that she blushed so brightly that I was embarrassed and somewhat astonished to see how small a progress this girl had really made in coquetry. I was to learn that she blushed easily; I did not know it then; but it presently amused me to find her, after all, so unschooled. "Why," said I, "should you show your colours to a passing craft that fires no shot nor even thinks to board you? I am no pirate, Penelope; like those Johnstown gallants who gather like flies, they say----" But I checked my words, not daring to plague her further, for the colour was surging in her cheeks and she seemed unaccustomed to such harmless bantering as mine. "Lord!" thought I, "here is a very lie that this maid is any such siren as Nick thinks her, for her pretty thumb is still wet with sucking." Yet I myself had become sensible that there really was about her a _something_--exactly what I knew not--but some seductive quality, some vague enchantment about her, something unusual which compelled men's notice. It was not, I thought, entirely the agreeable contrast of yellow hair and dark eyes; nor a smooth skin like new snow touched to a rosy hue by the afterglow. She sat near the window, where I stood gazing out across the water, toward the mountains beyond. Her hands, joined, rested flat between her knees; her hair, in the sun, was like maple gold reflected in a ripple. "Lord!" thought I, "small wonder that the gay blades of Tryon should come a-meddling to undo so pretty a thing." But the thought did not please me, yet it was no concern o' mine. But I now comprehended how this girl might attract men, and, strangely enough, was sorry for it. For it seemed plain that here was no coquette by intention or by any knowledge of the art of pleasing men; but she was one, nevertheless, so sweetly her dark eyes regarded you when you spoke; so lovely the glimmer of her smile. And it was, no doubt, something of these that men noticed--and her youth and inexperience, which is tender tinder to hardened flint that is ever eager to strike fire and start soft stuff blazing. CHAPTER XII THE SHAPE IN WHITE