between the youngest child and the blackberry-pudding, stood as still as
the sun in Ajalon. The morsel between the mouth of the elder boy and his
fork had a respite from mastication. The Seven Sleepers could not have
been spell-bound more suddenly and completely.

"Ah!" cried I, advancing eagerly, with an air of serious and yet abrupt
gladness; "how deuced lucky that I should find you all at luncheon. I was
up and had finished breakfast so early this morning, that I am half
famished. Only think how fortunate, Hardy (turning round to one of the
members of my committee, who accompanied me); I was just saying what
would I not give to find Mr. St. Quintin at luncheon. Will you allow me,
Madam, to make one of your party?"

Mrs. St. Quintin coloured, and faltered, and muttered out something which
I was fully resolved not to hear. I took a chair, looked round the table,
not too attentively, and said--"Cold veal; ah! ah! nothing I like so
much. May I trouble you, Mr. St. Quintin?--Hollo, my little man, let's
see if you can't give me a potatoe. There's a brave fellow. How old are
you, my young hero?--to look at your mother, I should say two; to look at
you, six."

"He is four next May," said his mother, colouring, and this time not
painfully.

"Indeed!" said I, surveying him earnestly; and then, in a graver tone, I
turned to the Reverend Combermere with--"I think you have a branch of
your family still settled in France. I met Monsieur St. Quintin, the Due
de Poictiers, abroad."

"Yes," said Mr. Combermere, "yes, the name is still in Normandy, but I