“Don’t be down-hearted, Jacques, how know’st thou but that my sister may change her mind and look kindly on thee yet; wait till the Redcoats have gone down to the Castle, and then perhaps thy fishers’ garb may find favour in her sight, but what hast thou got there?  Some woman’s trifles, which thou seem’st to understand better than I have yet learned.”

“I made these sore against my will, for I would rather see thy sister reading some edifying book than passing her time on such vanities as these are used for, they are bobbins, lad.”

“Ha, Ha,” laughed Hirzel, “were I to go into the market to-morrow and say that stern Jacques Gaultier spent his hours carving out lace bobbins, who would believe me?”

“Don’t laugh at me, Hirzel, perhaps one of these fine days thou wilt do something more foolish:  when thy nineteen summers shall have ripened like mine to thirty thou wilt have different thoughts.”

“Time enough to speak when it comes.  Now I love my boat better than anything else!  But how we are wasting this fine evening.  My Father will think we are lost or gone to be soldiers, eh Jacques?  Come along, and we will see what Marguerite thinks of those little sticks of thine.”

CHAPTER II.

On the same evening of which we have been speaking Marguerite was sitting just outside the door, employed as she generally was in her leisure time at lace work, of the style which had been so fashionable during the reign of the late murdered King.  How Marguerite had first learnt this “unedifying work,” we know not but as she used to work for the family of one of the King’s officers, and had seen the ladies do it, she soon with very little instruction learnt to do it well.  Very pretty Marguerite looked bending over her “lace pillow,” weaving sweet thoughts into her work, if we may judge from the expression of her face which was one of those that “made one feel good to look at,” as Charlie often said, and indeed it was a good thing for him to take the remembrance of such a face through his Barrack life, which at least was a rough one.

Marguerite had not long been enjoying the quiet of her own society when she heard her Father call her.  She immediately obeyed his summons with that strange feeling at her heart—­that strange foreshadowing of evil—­to which we have all been subject at some time in our lives.  “Again at that silly work, girl; better for thee to get something to do about the house than waste thy time over that useless finery; I’ll warrant me when thou art Jacques Gaultier’s wife he will find thee other work—­mending his nets, mayhap!”

“My dear Father, I will never be Jacques Gaultier’a wife.  I have told him so oft:  I doubt if he will ever speak to me on the subject again; he will not risk hearing rude words from me, I fancy.”

“I tell thee thou shalt be Jacques Gaultier’s wife, and that before long; he is coming here to-night, and I will tell him he can have thee with my full consent.  Spite of thy love for red coats, thou wilt settle down here as a fisher’s wife.”