"Nay, nay; come back with me, and my wife shall fill the basket to-day," answered the gentleman, with a kindly authority that the girl could not resist; and, as she walked beside him, Etienne, proud of his adventure and his little hurt, hanging to his father's hand, Theresa found herself closely questioned as to herself and her circumstances, and heard a wondering exclamation pass the gentleman's lips as she spoke the name of Madame de Berquin.
That day saw the end of Theresa's troubles about food; for, from thenceforward till the close of the siege, General Varade, whose little son she had saved, made the care of her and her mother and of Madame de Berquin his especial task. He knew something of the history and family of the latter, came to see her, and would have moved her into better quarters had she wished it; but she had grown so fond of Theresa and her mother that until better days should come she preferred to remain where she was.
"It is to thy bravery, my child, that we owe all this," she once remarked; and Theresa, looking quite astonished, answered:
"Oh, Madame, I was never brave. I was always scolding myself for being such a coward!"
But others when they heard these words smiled.
JANE LANE
Those were anxious days for the adherents of the Stuarts. The late King had perished upon the scaffold, and his family were in exile in foreign lands. The iron rule of Cromwell had England in its grip. But anxious eyes were fixed upon that gallant attempt of the King's son—King Charles II., as the loyalists already called him—to win back for himself the kingdom his father had lost, and overset the military thraldom beneath which the people now groaned.
It was a time of intense suspense and heartbreaking anxiety. It seemed impossible that the young King, crowned in Scotland, and on his way to the south, could overthrow those redoubtable troops commanded by their redoubtable General, the great Oliver Cromwell himself. And yet hope which springs eternal in the human breast filled the hearts of the cavaliers with bright anticipations of coming triumph; anticipations that were changed to dire fears and forebodings when the news of the result of the Battle of Worcester became known.