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"Thou knowest her, my friend," answered Madame de Maufant, kindly; "ever since her mother's death she has been a daughter to me. But a sister is not a mother at the end of the account; and our little one will not be kept a prisoner. She has learned English ideas in her girlhood, passed as you know with our London kinsfolk.

So when Mme. de Maufant and her sister presented themselves at the gate, seeking admission to Alain's cell, the worthy jailor unhesitatingly showed them into his own parlour, and fetched Alain to them, only taking the precaution of turning the door key upon the outside as he left them alone with the priser, on the understanding that they should call him from the window when they wished to leave.

"M. de Maufant," said Prynne, with the shy courtesy of a student, "will admire that I should seek speech of him after sundry passages that have been between us." "Alack! Mr. Prynne," answered the stranger, with a slight foreign accent, "since your captivity in Mont Orgueil many things have befallen.

Your M. le Gallais indeed! one would think it was you and M. de Maufant that wanted to marry him. As for me, I do not want to marry at all. Least of all does it import me to marry a man chosen by others. I prefer the ways of England." "Di va!" exclaimed her sister. "A good man is not bad because our friends like him. Marry this good Alain, and love him after."

Its only possible rival, the house of Lempriere, of Maufant, had espoused warmly the cause of the Parliament, and had consequently met with reverses when the Carterets, who were royalist, effected the revolution mentioned in our Prologue. It only remains to be added that the people at large were not at all warmly attached to either of the parties to the Civil War.

While one conversed with Mme. de Maufant, the other advanced to her sister, and, without taking heed of Le Gallais, addressed her in courtly tones, holding his fur cap in his hand, his brown hair fell down upon his shoulders. "Fear nothing, bright pearl of Jersey," said the stranger. "A traveller who has heard of your charms asks leave to prove them."

Matters were in this state, when one lovely day in September, 1651, Alain came before Mme. de Maufant and her sister as they sate knitting in the doorway. "Great news!" he cried, as soon as he was near enough for the ladies to hear. "Great news! General Cromwell has thoroughly purged the garner. He has beaten and scattered the Scots at Worcester.

And he further appropriated to his own use the revenues of his personal enemies, the chief of whom were the exiled Seigneurs Dumaresq, of Samares, and Lempriere, of Maufant. It should, however, be added that he shed no more blood.

In his perplexity, he wandered almost as by instinct to the lodgings of the Lemprieres. He had long been accustomed to regard the simple good faith and courage of Mme. de Maufant as an infallible oracle in cases of conscience. Never had so hard a need for an infallible oracle presented itself to his mind as this.

"Owls be abroad," said the stranger. "They mouse by night," answered the king. Without further communication the two walked silently through the town, and up the steep lane in which Mme. de Maufant had taken up her abode. It was on a hill over-looking the town, still known by the name of "The King's Cliff." At the back were woods and fields.