exact sentence with which my father bestowed my title upon me as he
hung by his heels out of a window of the old vine-covered Chateau de
Grez.

"It is one large mistake that my _jeune fille_ is born what you
call a boy in heart. _Helas_!" sobbed my beautiful young French
mother as she regarded us from the garden below.

"If you were a boy I'd thrash you within an inch of your life, but as
you are a girl I suppose it is permissible for me to admire your
pluck, Mademoiselle Roberta," said my father as he landed me in the
music room by his side while an exchange of excited sentences went on
between my mother and old Nannette in the garden below. "What were you
doing out on that ledge, anyway? It is more than a hundred feet to the
ground and the rocks."

"I was making the hunt through Yellowstone Park that you have related
to me, father, and I prefer that you give me a boy's punishment. If I
have a boy's what you call 'pluck,' I should have a boy's what you
call 'thrashing.' Monsieur, I make that demand. I am the Marquise de
Grez and Bye, and it may be that as you are an American you do not
understand fully the honor of the house of Grez." I can remember that
as I spoke I drew my ten-year old body up to its full height, which
must have been over that of twelve years, and looked my father
straight in the face with a glance of extreme hauteur as near as was
possible to that of the portrait of the old Marquis de Grez, who died
fighting on the field of Flanders.

"_Eh, la la_, what is it I have produced for you, Henri of
America? It is not a proper _jeune fille_, nor do I know what