But Johnny only screamed the louder, for Johnny did not understand French, and Johnny was in pain. Fanchette, being a determined Frenchwoman, went on with the twisting; like Sir Reginald Hugh de Bray she certainly would have twisted it on till she twisted it off; in vain did Johnny, in his ineffectual struggles, turn head over heels more than once; the relentless Frenchwoman never let go his soft and ruddy ear. She continued her injunctions to the boy, addressing him in many of the choicest flowers of abuse with which her language abounds, that he should beg mademoiselle's pardon. He did so at last, for even the endurance of a British boy breaks down at the idea of losing an ear. "I begs yer pardon, Mamzell," he said sulkily, as he clapped his hand to the injured member, to assure himself that it was still attached to his head. From that day Fanchette ceased to be "Frenchy" to Johnny, she became "Mamzell." At first, as a joke, the Warren servants gave her the title derisively; from them it spread to the villagers, and gradually all King's Warren called her "Mamzell" in sober earnest. The atmosphere of home, the healthy English air, and above all the quiet and regularity of the life at The Warren, combined with the hope of the approaching return of her husband, all had a beneficial effect on Georgie Haggard's physical health. Her lost colour gradually began to return, her step regained somewhat of its former elasticity, but she courted solitude, and seldom spoke. It was with difficulty she could be persuaded to go outside the grounds. Even the gossip of the vicar's wife, or the genial chat of the vicar himself, failed to interest her. The change was apparent to everybody. But King's Warren opinion was generally formed by the active mind of Mrs. Dodd. Mrs. Dodd had decided that the poor thing was fretting for her husband; she considered that Mrs. Haggard deserved her sympathy, and so King's Warren looked on Mrs. Haggard as a "poor thing," and duly sympathized. Old Warrender himself became gradually less anxious, and accepted the general verdict. Weeks rolled into months. The sale of estates, even in Mexico, ends at last. Haggard, who had returned to the capital, found the weather getting unpleasantly hot; there was nothing further to detain him, and he vouchsafed to announce his return to the wife of his bosom. Strange to say, to the astonishment of all but Lucy, young Mrs. Haggard continued to "fret."