Madame de Bellaise was inhabiting her son’s great Hotel de Nidemerle.  He was absent in garrison, and she was presiding over the family of grandchildren, their mother being in bad health.  So much Anne heard before she was conducted to a pleasant little bedroom, far more home-like and comfortable than in any of the palaces she had inhabited.  It opened into another, whence merry young voices were heard.

“That is the apartment of my sister’s youngest daughter,” said Madame de Bellaise, “Noemi Darpent.  I borrowed her for a little while to teach her French and dancing, but now that we are gone to war, they want to have her back again, and it will be well that she should avail herself of the same escort as yourself.  All will then be selon les convenances, which had been a difficulty to me,” she added with a laugh.

Then opening the door of communication she said; “Here, Noemi, we have found your countrywoman, and I put her under your care.  Ah! you two chattering little pies, I knew the voices were yours.  This is my granddaughter, Marguerite de Nidemerle, and my niece—­a la mode de Bretagne—­Cecile d’Aubepine, all bestowing their chatter on their cousin.”

Noemi Darpent was a tall, fair, grave-faced maiden, some years over twenty, and so thoroughly English that it warmed Anne’s heart to look at her, and the other two were bright little Frenchwomen—­ Marguerite a pretty blonde, Cecile pale, dark, and sallow, but full of life.  Both were at the age at which girls were usually in convents, but as Anne learnt, Madame de Bellaise was too English at heart to give up the training of her grandchildren, and she had an English governess for them, daughter to a Romanist cavalier ruined by sequestration.

She was evidently the absolute head of the family.  Her daughter-in-law was a delicate little creature, who scarcely seemed able to bear the noise of the family at the long supper-table, when all talked with shrill French voices, from the two youths and their abbe tutor down to the little four-year-old Lolotte in her high chair.  But to Anne, after the tedious formality of the second table at the palace, stiff without refinement, this free family life was perfectly delightful and refreshing, though as yet she was too much cramped, as it were, by long stiffness, silence, and treatment as an inferior to join, except by the intelligent dancing of her brown eyes, and replies when directly addressed.

After Mrs. Labadie’s homeliness, Pauline’s exclusive narrowness, Jane’s petty frivolity, Hester’s vulgar worldliness, and the general want of cultivation in all who treated her on an equality, it was like returning to rational society; and she could not but observe that Mr. Archfield altogether held his own in conversation with the rest, whether in French or English.  Little more than a year ago he would hardly have opened his mouth, and would have worn the true bumpkin look of contemptuous sheepishness.