seen her, and need not to know that she is of our kin at all,"

"Humph!" muttered Victor. "Small doubt to whom the girl is kin, if a man
have eyes in his head." And he would have argued the point longer with
Jeanne, but he had no time left, for the riders had already turned into
the courtyard, and were giving their horses in charge to the
white-headed ostler Benoit. Benoit had served in the Golden Pear for a
quarter of a century. He had served Victor Dubois's father in Normandy,
had come with his young master to America, and was nominally his servant
still. But if things had gone by their right names at the Golden Pear,
old Benoit would not have been called servant for many a year back. Not
a secret in that household which Benoit had not shared; not a plot he
had not helped on. At Jeanne's marriage he was the only witness except
Father Hennepin; and there were some who recollected still with what
extraordinary chuckles of laughter Benoit had walked away from the
chapel after that ceremony had been completed. To the young Victorine
Benoit had been devoted ever since her coming to the inn. Whenever she
appeared in sight the old man came to gaze on her, and stood lingering
and admiring as long as she remained.

"Thou art far handsomer than thy mother ever was," he had said to her
one morning soon after her arrival.

"Oh, didst thou know my mother, then, when she was young?" cried
Victorine. "She is not handsome now, though she is newly wed; when she
came to see me in the convent, I thought her very ugly. When didst thou
know her, Benoit?"

Benoit was very red in the face, and began to toss straw vigorously as
he looked away from Victorine and answered: "It was but once that I had