guest--the Marquis de Lafayette. There was much of the French spirit in
the boy, inherited from his mother, and to every word the Marquis had
uttered he had listened eagerly, painting his hero in colors that were
too bright and too many, perhaps. An hour ago he had stolen out of the
house to this hummock, a favorite spot of his, to dream over all he had
heard and of the future.

His eyes were fixed upon a distant white sail, sun touched, which
lessened far out across the bay, which presently became a point of light
and was then hidden in the haze of the horizon. That was the way of
dreams surely, the road which led to the realization of hope. That ship
might go on and on through sunlight and storm, through mist and clear
weather, and some time, how long a time the boy did not know, it would
reach another land, France perchance, surely the best of all lands,
since it bred such men as the Marquis de Lafayette.

"Dreaming, Richard?"

The grass had deadened the sound of approaching footsteps and the boy
rose hastily. His face flushed as he recognized his visitor.

He was a thin man, still young, with an earnest face which at once
arrested attention. It was far more that of a visionary than was the
boy's, a difficult countenance to read and understand. If, for a moment,
the neatness and precision of his dress suggested a man of idle leisure,
a courtier and little more, there quickly followed a conviction that
such an estimate of his character was a wrong one. Dreamer he might be,
in a sense, but he was also a man of action. The spare frame was full of
energy, there was determination in the face. This was a man who knew
nothing of fear, whom danger would only bring stronger courage; a man