intrigues aiming at the restoration of the Empire, his sympathies were
still keen.

When he talked in this strain, of his thrilling memories of the Terror
and of the extraordinary days when Bonaparte was Emperor, Dan and Tom
would listen to him by the hour. But Mrs. Frost preferred to hear the
Marquis's reminiscences of the _ancien regime_ and of the old court life
at Versailles. He had been a page, he said, to the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette; he would cross himself piously at the mention of the magic
name, and digress rapturously upon her beauty and grace, and bemoan, with
tears, her unhappy fate. She liked also to hear of the court of Napoleon
and of the life of the _faubourgs_ in the Paris of the day. On these
occasions the young men were apt to slip away and leave the Marquis alone
with Mrs. Frost and Nancy.

For Nancy Monsieur de Boisdhyver seemed to have a fascination. She would
listen absorbed to his voluble tales, her bright eyes fixed on his
fantastic countenance, her head usually resting upon her hand, and her
body bent forward in an attitude of eager attention. She rarely spoke
even to ask a question; indeed, her only words would be an occasional
exclamation of interest, or the briefest reply.

During the day their noble guest would potter about the house or, when
the weather was fine, stroll down to the shore, where he would walk up
and down the strip of sandy beach in the lee of the wind hour after hour.
Now and then he wandered out upon the dunes that stretched along the
Neck; and once, Dan afterwards learned, he paid a call upon old Mrs.
Meath who lived by herself in the lonely farmhouse on Strathsey Neck,
that was known as the House of the Dunes.