and his peril.

For, as he passed from the church, the Seigneur touched him on the
shoulder and introduced him to his English grandniece, come on a visit
for the summer, the daughter of a London baronet. She had but just
arrived, and she was feeling that first homesickness which succeeds
transplanting. The face of the young worker in stone interested her; the
idea of it all was romantic; the possibilities of the young man's life
opened out before her. Why should not she give him his real start, win
his gratitude, help him to his fame, and then, when it was won, be
pointed out as a discoverer and a patron?

All these things flashed through her mind as they were introduced. The
young man did not read the look in her eyes, but there was one other
person in the crowd about the church steps who did read it, whose heart
beat furiously, whose foot tapped the ground angrily--a black-haired,
brown-eyed farmer's daughter, who instantly hated the yellow hair and
rosy and golden face of the blue-eyed London lady; who could, that
instant, have torn the silk gown from her graceful figure.

She was not disturbed without reason. And for the moment, even when she
heard impertinent and incredulous fellows pooh-poohing the monument, and
sharpening their rather dull wits upon its corners, she did not open her
lips, when otherwise she would have spoken her mind with a vengeance; for
Jeanne Marchand had a reputation for spirit and temper, and she spared no
one when her blood was up. She had a touch of the vixen--an impetuous,
loving, forceful mademoiselle, in marked contrast to the rather ascetic
Francois, whose ways were more refined than his origin might seem to
warrant.