she was as distant from me and my life as the court from which she had come.  I found myself glancing continually at her face, on which the candle-light shone.  The Vicomtesse might have been four and twenty.  Save for the soberer gown she wore, she seemed scarce older than the young girl in the miniature who had the presence of a woman of the world.  Suddenly I discovered with a flush that she was looking at me intently, without embarrassment, but with an expression that seemed to hint of humor in the situation.  To my astonishment, she laughed a little.

“You are a very odd person, Mr. Ritchie,” she said.  “I have heard so much of you from Mrs. Temple, from Antoinette, that I know something of your strange life.  After all,” she added with a trace of sadness, “it has been no stranger than my own.  First I will answer your questions, and then I shall ask some.”

“But I have asked no questions, Madame la Vicomtesse,” I said.

“And you are a very simple person, Mr. Ritchie,” continued Madame la Vicomtesse, smiling; “it is what I had been led to suppose.  A serious person.  As the friend of Mr. Nicholas Temple, as the relation and (may I say?) benefactor of this poor lady here, it is fitting that you should know certain things.  I will not weary you with the reasons and events which led to my coming from Europe to New Orleans, except to say that I, like all of my class who have escaped the horrors of the Revolution, am a wanderer, and grateful to Monsieur de St. Gre for the shelter he gives me.  His letter reached me in England, and I arrived three months ago.”

She hesitated—­nay, I should rather say paused, for there was little hesitation in what she did.  She paused, as though weighing what she was to say next.

“When I came to Les Iles I saw that there was a sorrow weighing upon the family; and it took no great astuteness on my part, Mr. Ritchie, to discover that Antoinette was the cause of it.  One has only to see Antoinette to love her.  I wondered why she had not married.  And yet I saw that there had been an affair.  It seemed very strange to me, Mr. Ritchie, for with us, you understand, marriages are arranged.  Antoinette really has beauty, she is the daughter of a man of importance in the colony, her strength of character saves her from being listless.  I found a girl with originality of expression, with a sense of the fitness of things, devoted to charitable works, who had not taken the veil.  That was on her father’s account.  As you know, they are inseparable.  Monsieur Philippe de St. Gre is a remarkable man, with certain vigorous ideas not in accordance with the customs of his neighbors.  It was he who first confided in me that he would not force Antoinette to marry; it was she, at length, who told me the story of Nicholas Temple and his mother.”  She paused again, and, reading between the lines, I perceived that Madame la Vicomtesse had become essential to the household at Les Iles.  Philippe de St. Gre was not a man to misplace a confidence.