talks with my mother, of which I, for the most part, comprehended
nothing, except that oftentimes they spoke of me, and then he would
smooth my hair with great tenderness. But I sat there quite content, and
sometimes dozed off with my head against his flowered waistcoat,--it was
his one vanity,--and wakened only when he set me gently down.

It was not until I grew older that I learned something of his history.
One day, he had seized time from his parish work to take me for a ramble
along the river, and as we reached the limit of our walk and sat down for
a moment's rest before starting homeward, and looked across the wide
water, I asked him, with a childish disregard for his feelings, if it
were true that his father was a Frenchman, adding that I hoped it were
not true, because I did not like the French.

"Yes, it is true," he answered, and looked down at me, smiling sadly.
"Shall I tell you the story, Thomas?"

I nodded eagerly, for I loved to listen to stories, especially true ones.

"When Louis Fourteenth was King of France," he began, and I think he took
a melancholy pleasure in telling it, "he issued a decree commanding all
the Protestants, who in France are called Huguenots, to abjure their
faith and become Catholics, or leave the kingdom. He had oftentimes
before promised them protection, but he was growing old and weak, and
thought that this might help to save his soul, which was in great need of
saving, for he had been a wicked king. My father and my mother were
Huguenots, and they chose to leave their home rather than give up their
faith, as did many thousand others, and after suffering many hardships,
escaped to England, with no worldly possession save the clothes upon
their backs, but with a great treasure in heaven and an abiding trust in