eneath the fair skin, if carefully analyzed, should exhibit corpuscles tinged with royal azure. For, was it not true that a demoiselle of her mother's line had been, in ancient days, graciously permitted to bear a son to a king of France, from which son a noble House had sprung with the proud privilege of that bar sinister which proclaimed its glory? These were facts well worthy to be the foundation of a vision in which he saw the maid before him a wife of one of the old noblesse; a mother of sons who would uphold the sacred cause of Legitimacy, as their ancestors (including himself, for he was a furious Legitimist) had done before them. It would solace the dreaded status of grandfather.
"What are you thinking of, Natalie?" he asked in French.
"Of many things; principally that I am sorry he showed them to us."
"The trout?"
"Yes, I am so hungry."
"They have sharpened your appetite. They are beautiful fish."
"I'm glad they haven't spoiled it. Why, papa, they were alive!
