"If you please, Madam. I must try the skirt on you in a little while, by your leave."
So Patient and the white satin petticoat came and settled themselves in Celia's boudoir.
"You had just landed in France when you left off, Patient. I am anxious to know if you found friends."
"'Twould make it a very long tale, Madam to tell you of all that we did and suffered ere we found friends. It was a hard matter to see what we should do; for had I sought a place as woman to some lady, I could not have left Roswith alone; and no lady would be like to take the child with me. So I could but entreat the Lord to show me how to earn bread enough for my wee sister and myself. The woman of the house who took us in after the shipwreck was very good unto us, the Lord inclining her heart to especial pity of us; and she greatly pressed us to go on to Paris, where she thought we should be more like to meet with succor. Therefore we set out on our way to Paris. The Lord went with us, and gave us favor in the eyes of all them whom we had need of on our road. Most of the women whom we met showed much compassion for Roswith, she being but a wee bit wean, and a very douce and cannie bairn to boot. It was in the month of October that we arrived in Paris. Here the Lord had prepared a strange thing for us. There was an uncle of Miss Magdalene, by name Mr. Francis Grey, who was a rich gentleman and a kindly. He had been on his travels into foreign parts, and was returning through this city unto his place; and by what men call chance, Miss Magdalene and I lighted on this gentleman in the Paris street, we returning from the buying of bread and other needful matters. He was as if he saw her not, for he afterward told us that he had heard nought of the harrying of Lauchie, nor of our shipwreck. But she ran to him, and cast her arms about him, calling 'Uncle Francis!' and after a season he knew her again, but at first he was a man amazed. When he heard all that had come upon us, and how Miss Magdalene was left all alone in the world, father and mother being drowned, he wept and clipped[[4]] her many times, and said that she should come with him to his inn, and dwell with him, and be unto him as a daughter, for he had no child. Then she prayed him to have compassion upon us also, Patient and Roswith Leslie; who, as John saith, had continued with her in her tribulation, and, it pleased her to say, had aided and comforted her. Mr. Francis smiled, and he said that I, Patient, should be in his service as a woman for her; and for Roswith, 'She,' quoth he, 'will not eat up all my substance, poor wee thing! So she shall come too, and in time Patient must learn her meetly unto the same place to some other lady.' Thus it was, Madam, that at the time when we seemed at the worst, the Lord delivered us out of our distresses."
"Then you went back to Scotland?"
"No, Madam, we never went back. For when Mr. Francis heard all, of the harrying of Lauchie, and the evil deeds of the King's troopers, and the cruelty of Claverhouse, he said there could be no peace in Scotland more, and sent word unto his steward to sell all, and remit the money to him. He bought a house at Paris, and there we dwelt all."
"It was in her uncle's house, then, that my mother met my father?"
"There, Madam. Sir Edward took her to England, for they married in January, 1687, while King James yet reigned; and Sir Edward was great with the King, and had a fine land there. Her son, your brother, Madam, that is Sir Edward now, was born in London, in the summer of 1688."
"Patient, what kind of man was my father?"
"He was a very noble-looking gentleman, Madam, tall, with dark eyes and hair."