Set in Silver | Page 3

rather likes them, because any "intrigue," even the smallest, is
exciting to her.
You would never guess anything like what has happened.
That dragon of a guardian of hers is coming back at last from Bengal,
where he's been governor or something. Not that his coming would
matter particularly if it weren't for complications, but there are several,
the most formidable of which is a Young Man.
The Young Man is a French young man, and his name is Honoré du
Guesclin. He is a lieutenant in the army (Ellaline mentioned the

regiment with pride, but I've forgotten it already, there was so much
else to remember), and she says he is descended from the great Du
Guesclin. She met him at Madame de Blanchemain's--you remember
the Madame de Blanchemain who was Ellaline's dead mother's most
intimate friend, and who lives at St. Cloud? Ellaline has spent all her
holidays there ever since I've known her; but though I thought she told
me everything (she always vowed she did), not a word did she ever
breathe about a young man having risen over her horizon. She says she
didn't dare, because I'm so "queer and prim about some things." I'm not,
am I? But now she's driven to confess, as she's in the most awful scrape,
and doesn't know what will become of her and "darling Honoré," unless
I'll consent to help them.
She met him only last Easter. He's a nephew of Madame de
Blanchemain's, it seems; and on coming back from foreign service in
Algeria, or somewhere, he dutifully paused to visit his relative. Of
course it occurs to me, did Madame de Blanchemain write and intimate
that she would have in the house a pretty little Anglo-French heiress,
with no inconvenient relatives, unless one counts the Dragon? But
Ellaline says Honoré's coming was quite a surprise to his aunt. Anyway,
he proposed on the third day, and Ellaline accepted him. It was by
moonlight, in a garden, so who can blame the poor child? I always
thought if even a moderately good-looking young man proposed to me
by moonlight, in a garden, I would say "Yes--yes!" at once, even if I
changed my mind next day.
But Honoré is very good looking (she has his picture in a locket, with
such a turned-up moustache--I mean Honoré, not the locket), and so
Ellaline didn't change her mind next day.
Not a word was said to Madame de Blanchemain (as far as Ellaline
knows), for they decided that, considering everything, they must keep
their secret, and eventually run away to be married; because Honoré is
poor, and Ellaline's an heiress guarded by a Dragon.
Well, through letters which E. has been receiving at a teashop where
she and the other older girls go, rigorously chaperoned, twice a week, it
was arranged to do the deed as soon as school should close; and if they

could have carried out their plan, Ellaline would have been Madame du
Guesclin before the Dragon could have appeared on the scene,
breathing fire and rattling his scales. They were going to Scotland to be
married (Honoré's idea), as a man can't legally marry a girl under age in
France without the consent of everybody concerned. Once she'd got
away with him, and had had any kind of hole-in-the-corner wedding,
Honoré was of opinion that even the most abandoned Dragon would be
thankful to sanction a marriage according to French law; so it could all
be done over again properly in France.
I suppose this appealed immensely to Ellaline's love of intrigue and
kittenish tricksiness generally. Anyway, she agreed; but young officers
propose, and their superiors dispose. Honoré was ordered off for a
month's manoeuvres before he could even ask for leave; and as he's
known to be destitute of near relatives, he couldn't rake up a perishing
grandmother as an excuse.
What he did try, I don't know; but anyhow, he failed, and the running
away had to be put off. That was blow number one, and could have
been borne, without blow number two, which fell in the shape of a
letter. It said that the wicked guardian was just about to start for home,
and intended to pick up Ellaline on his way to England, as if she were a
parcel labelled "to be kept till called for."
She's certain he won't let her marry Honoré if he has the chance to say
"no" beforehand, because he cares nothing about her happiness, or
about her, or anything else except his own selfish ambitions. Of course,
Ellaline is a girl who takes strong prejudices against people for no
particular reason, except that she has a "feeling they are horrid"; but she
does appear to be right about this man. He's English, and though
Ellaline's mother