But what excited me most was the courage of the girl. She started; but
rose straight and firm, facing us as we charged. Even in that instant, I
could see changes of pallor and color leap across her brow and
cheek--could see them as if with supernatural vividness. Yet her eyes
lighted proudly, her form held itself erect, and her clear features
triumphed with the lines as if of a superior race. She could only be
compared, standing there, to an angel guarding Paradise! How fair she
was! And the face was the face of the little girl of the Manoir of
Esneval!

After the agitations of our apologies I retained just enough of my wits
about me to enquire her name. "Alexandra Grant," she said gracefully
enough. Ah yes, I recollected--the Grants, within a generation, had
bought the Esneval Seigniory, and its Manor-house.




CHAPTER VII.

QUINET.


Now a little more of Quinet. Small, gaunt and strange-looking, I pitied
him because he was a victim of our stupid educational wrecking systems.
His was too fine an organization to have been exposed to the blunders of
the scholastic managers; for his course had exhibited signs of no less
than the genius he had claimed. Most of his years of study had been
spent as a precocious youth in that great Seminary of the Sulpician