'Can you ask me why, Monsieur, after saving our lives? In gratitude, I can love you and pray for you.'
Charlie laughed, and said—
'Ma belle, I am, indeed, thankful that we were in time to turn these marauders out of doors.'
And then he thought of his three sisters at home, and what his emotions would be if such a scene, as he had just interrupted, had taken place in his father's quiet house in Warwickshire.
'What is your name, Monsieur?' she asked, 'as I must never forget it.'
'Carl—Charles Pierrepont.'
She repeated it two or three times, and laughing, said:
'It sounds very droll!'
Charlie could not help laughing at the girl's naïve manner, and thought that the old Warwickshire squire, who was fond of deducing his descent from Robert, who received the manor of Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, from the Conqueror, would have found nothing 'droll' in it.
'And what is yours, Mademoiselle?'