study as to study altogether. I know that that was my case."

"Well, perhaps so; still, I might as well have been whipped into
learning something useful, instead of something that, so far as
I can see, will never be of any value whatever. Were you born over
here, lieutenant?"

"No, I was born in Scotland; but my father, who was a younger son, saw
no chance of making his way by his sword at home. It was certain
that James would never go to war, and as there was no regular
army, there seemed no opening for a penniless cadet in England or
Scotland, so he came over here and obtained a commission, and as
soon as he did so sent for my mother and myself. She died two years
later; he kept me with him. When he went on service I was left in
the charge of a Huguenot family, and it was well that it was so,
for otherwise I might have grown up unable to read or write. The
last time that I saw him was before he rode to La Rochelle. After
his death I was adopted by the regiment, for the good people I was
with left Paris to join their friends in the south. Had it been
otherwise I should have stayed with them. The good man would
probably have brought me up to be, like himself, a minister, and
I am afraid I should have made a very poor one."

The two young men laughed. "Just at present," de Lisle said, "the
two religions get on quietly together. The cardinal, churchman as
he is, knows that if France is to be great religious enmities must
cease, and that the wars of the last reign cost tens of thousands
of lives, and drove great numbers of men to take refuge in Holland
or England, to the benefit of those countries and our loss. Still,
his successor, whoever he may be, may think more of party and less