of the McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement
upon the chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red
fiends? Come, we'll go back to the Rue St. Dominique, to the suppers and
the card parties of the countess. We'll be rid of regrets for a life
upon which we have turned our backs forever."

She shook her head, sadly.

"It's no use, Harry," said she, "we'll never be rid of regrets."

"We'll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, and
gentry round about. But, damn it, the Rebels have spoiled all that since
the war."

"Those are not the regrets I mean," answered Mrs. Temple.

"What then, in Heaven's name?" he cried. "You were not wont to be thus.
But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?"

She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staring
at her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,--the
pattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook the
woman's shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in a
butternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm.

Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned and
flung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed his
brown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very still on
her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The lady
smiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her fair