So sanguine was he of success, so confident that his ship had come home
at last, that he had been in treaty for a nice little old manor in Anjou
(with a nice little old castle to match), called la Mariere, which had
belonged to his ancestors, and from which we took our name (for we were
Pasquier de la Mariere, of quite a good old family); and there we were
to live on our own land, as _gentilshommes campagnards_, and be French
for evermore, under a paternal, pear-faced bourgeois king as a temporary
_pis-aller_ until Henri Cinq, Comte de Chambord, should come to his own
again, and make us counts and barons and peers of France--Heaven
knows what for!

My mother, who was beside herself with grief, went over to London, where
this miserable accident had occurred, and had barely arrived there when
she was delivered of a still-born child, and died almost immediately;
and I became an orphan in less than a week, and a penniless one. For it
turned out that my father had by this time spent every penny of his own
and my mother's capital, and had, moreover, died deeply in debt. I was
too young and too grief-stricken to feel anything but the terrible
bereavement, but it soon became patent to me that an immense alteration
was to be made in my mode of life.

A relative of my mother's, Colonel Ibbetson (who was well off) came to
Passy to do his best for me, and pay what debts had been incurred in the
neighborhood, and settle my miserable affairs.

After a while it was decided by him and the rest of the family that I
should go back with him to London, there to be disposed of for the
best, according to his lights.