signed. Now it only rests with yourself, to accept or refuse my
invitation."

"I accept it most gladly, Baron. It will give me the greatest
pleasure to accompany you, and mademoiselle, and Monsieur de la
Vallee, whom I now regard as a dear friend, to your home."

"That is settled, then," the baron said. "We start early on
Thursday morning. It would be well, therefore, if you were to ride
over on Wednesday evening, and occupy one of the many spare
chambers there are in the house."

"I will do so willingly; and I shall ask the colonel to allow my
servant to accompany me."

"That is already settled. I told Colonel O'Brien that I owed much
to him also, and he at once acceded to my request, saying that,
although the wound is healing, the surgeon said that it would be a
fortnight, yet, before he will be fit for service; and, moreover,
that it was a custom when an officer went on leave that he should,
if he wished it, take his soldier servant with him."

"Thank you again, Baron. Mike is a faithful fellow, and a shrewd
one. I am so accustomed now to his services that I should miss
them, and his talk, very much."

"Have you heard, Mike," Desmond asked, when his servant came up to
his room, after the baron and Philip de la Vallee had left, "that
you are to go with me, to stay for a month, at Pointdexter?"