CHAPTERPAGE
I. The Child Who Won Hearts[1]
II. A Visit to Ireland[13]
III. An Irish Chieftain at Home[31]
IV. Old Young People[49]
V. "I'll Explain to Yourself"[68]
VI. M. Le Comte[88]
VII. The Little Comtesse[100]
VIII. Brown Hats and Fans[115]
IX. The English Girls at the School of La Princesse[131]
X. Thou Art Faithful and So Are My Bees[148]
XI. Thunder Storm[164]
XII. Gem of the Ocean[180]
XIII. The Pines[197]
XIV. Starlight and Tilly[216]
XV. I Cannot Talk Parley-vous[231]
XVI. The Fear of the Shillelagh[247]
XVII. If it Must Be, it Must[264]
XVIII. The Green Hat[280]
XIX. Le Cabinet de Beauté[299]
XX. A Conspiracy[314]
XXI. The Palace of Truth[330]
XXII. It is Joyful to Behold Thee, My Pushkeen[342]
XXIII. The Glorious Softness of Ireland[349]
XXIV. A Pound a Day—A Picture and a Wedding[368]

A GIRL OF HIGH ADVENTURE

CHAPTER I. THE CHILD WHO WON HEARTS.

Marguerite St. Juste was Irish on her mother's side, who was born of the Desmonds of Desmondstown in the County Kerry. Marguerite's father was a French Comte, whose grandfather had been one of the victims of the guillotine.

Little Marguerite lived with an uncle, who was really only that relation by marriage; his name was the Reverend John Mansfield. He had a large living in a large town about fifty miles from London, and he adopted Marguerite shortly after the death of her parents. This tragedy happened when she was very young, almost a baby. She did not in the least remember her father, whose dancing black eyes and merry ways had endeared him to all who knew him. Nor did she recall a single fact with regard to her mother—one of those famous Desmonds, who had joined the rebels in the great insurrection of '97, and whose people still lived and prospered and were gay and merry of the merry on their somewhat tattered and worn-out country estate.

Marguerite adored "Uncle Jack," as she called her supposed uncle. She had a knack of turning this grave and esteemed gentleman, so to speak, round her little finger. It was the Rev. John and his wife Priscilla who taught little Marguerite all she knew. She adored her uncle; she did not like his wife. A sterner or stricter woman than Priscilla Mansfield it would be hard to find. Her husband, it is true, considered her admirable, for she discovered whenever his parishioners tried to impose upon him, and kept the women of his parish well up to the mark.

Mrs. Mansfield was really a good woman, but her goodness was of a kind which must surely try such a nature as little Marguerite's, or Margot's, as her uncle called her. Mrs. Mansfield did her duty, it is true, but her good husband's parishioners dreaded her although they obeyed her. Her husband praised her, but wondered in his heart of hearts why more people did not love her. In especial he could not understand why little Margot objected to her. As a matter of fact, if it were not for Uncle Jack, this small girl would have found her life intolerably dull. She had managed, nobody quite knew how, to get into the very centre of the heart of the grave, patient-looking clergyman and, because of this fact which she knew and he knew, she got on quite well, otherwise—but little Margot did not dare to think of otherwise. Was she not herself a mixture of both Irish and French, and could there be any two nations more sure to produce a child like Margot—a child full of life and fearlessness, of fun and daring?

She longed inexpressibly for companionship, but young people were not permitted to visit at the Rectory. She dreamed long dreams of her father's people in the Château St. Juste, an old place near Arles, in South France, and of her mother's people at Desmondstown—an old estate gone almost to rack and ruin, for where was the money to keep it up?