Supper passed in inquires after kinsfolk and old friends.  Alas! of how many the answer was—­slain, missing since such a battle.  In prison, ruined, and brought to poverty, seemed to be the best I could hear of any one I inquired after.  That Walwyn was not yet utterly lost seemed to be owing to Harry Merrycourt.

‘He on the wrong side!’ I exclaimed.

‘He looks on the question as a lawyer,’ said my brother; ’holding the duty of the nation to be rather to the law than to the sovereign.’

‘Base!  Unworthy of a gentleman!’ cried my mother.  ’Who would believe him the kinsman of the gallant Duc de Mericour?’

’He would be ashamed to count kindred with tat effeminate petit maitre!’ cried Annora.

‘I think,’ said Eustace, ’that the wrong and persecution that his Huguenot grandfather suffered at the hands of his French family have had much power in inspiring him with that which he declares is as much loyalty as what I call by that honoured name.’

‘You can speak of him with patience!’ cried my mother.

‘In common gratitude he is bound to do so,’ said Annora.

For not only had Colonel Merrycourt preserved our brother’s life after Naseby, but he had found a plea of service to the King which availed at the trial that followed at Westminster.  Harry had managed to secure part of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed Chalgrove.  But soldiers had been quartered on both families; there had been a skirmish at Walwyn with Sir Ralph Hopton, much damage had been done to the house and grounds, and there was no means of repairing it; all the plate had been melted up, there was nothing to show for it but a little oval token, with the King’s head on one side, and the Queen’s on the other; and as to the chaplet of pearls—–­

There was a moment’s silence as I inquired for them.  Annora said: 

‘Gone, of course; more hatefully than all the rest.’

My brother added, with a smile that evidently cost him an effort: 

‘You are the only pearl of Ribaumont left, Meg, except this one,’ showing me his ring of thin silver with one pearl set in it; ’I kept back this one in memory of my grandmother.  So Nan will have to go to her first ball without them.’

And had little Nan never been to a ball?  No; she had never danced except that Christmas when a troop of cavaliers had been quartered at Walwyn—­a merry young captain and his lieutenant, who had sent for the fiddles, and made them have a dance in the hall, Berenger, and Nan, and all.  And not a week after, the young captain, ay, and our dear Berry, were lying in their blood at Alresford.  Had Nan’s heart been left there?  I wondered, when I saw how little she brightened at the mention of the Court ball where she was to appear next week, and to which it seemed my mother trusted that I should be invited in token of my being forgiven.