was no easy position to find one's self in, on the top, thus, of a large
horse with a senseless burden and no help in sight. He managed, however,
to dismount, and rather breathlessly carried the lady to the shade of the
trees, where he laid her with her head on a mound of rising turf, and,
lifting aside her hair, saw her face for the first time.

"Ah! That dear baroness!" he exclaimed; and, turning, he found himself
bowing rather stiffly to the gentleman, who had now returned, leading the
runaway horse. He was not, it may be mentioned, the baron.

While the two men were thus regarding each other in a polite silence, the
baroness opened a pair of remarkably bright brown eyes, at first with
wonder, and then with understanding, and finally with wonder again when
they lighted on de Vasselot.

"Lory!" she cried. "But where have you fallen from?"

"It must have been from heaven, baroness," he replied, "for I assuredly
came at the right moment."

He stood looking down at her--a lithe, neat, rather small-made man. Then
he turned to attend to his horse. The baroness was already busy with her
hair. She rose to her feet and smoothed her habit.

"Ah, good!" she laughed. "There is no harm done. But you saved my life,
my dear Lory. One cannot have two opinions as to that. If it were not
that the colonel is watching us, I should embrace you. But I have not
introduced you. This is Colonel Gilbert--my dear and good cousin, Lory de
Vasselot. The colonel is from Bastia, by the way, and the Count de
Vasselot pretends to be a Corsican. I mention it because it is only