Chevalier's daughter, would carry on her little industry very
undisturbedly in the same parlour with her father and his pupil. She
painted card-racks: laboured at embroidery; was ready to employ her quick
little brain or fingers in any way by which she could find means to add a
few shillings to the scanty store on which this exiled family supported
themselves in their day of misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in
the least unquiet about her, because she was promised in marriage to the
Comte de Florac, also of the emigration--a distinguished officer like the
Chevalier, than whom he was a year older--and, at the time of which we
speak, engaged in London in giving private lessons on the fiddle.
Sometimes on a Sunday he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in
his hand, and pay his court to his young fiancee, and talk over happier
days with his old companion-in-arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons
on a Sunday. He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, strange to
say, he never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois.

What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent,
generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong affections
to bind them elsewhere,--what happens when they meet daily over French
dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any business whatever? No
doubt Mademoiselle Leonore was a young lady perfectly bien elevee, and
ready, as every well-elevated young Frenchwoman should be, to accept a
husband of her parents' choosing; but while the elderly M. de Florac was
fiddling in London, there was that handsome young Tom Newcome ever
present at Blackheath. To make a long matter short, Tom declared his
passion, and was for marrying Leonore off hand, if she would but come
with him to the little Catholic chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not
go out to India together and be happy ever after?

The innocent little amour may have been several months in transaction,