He threw back the hangings and came towards Sylvia, addressing her distinctly.

The voice was so kind that her courage returned, and she looked up at the new comer.

His face was pale and somewhat worn-looking, the eyes were bright and sparkling, and benevolent in expression; his tall figure was curiously dressed in a fashion which yet did not seem quite unfamiliar to the little girl--a sort of doublet or jacket of rich crimson velvet, with lace at the collar and cuffs, short trousers fastened in at the knees, "very like Ralph's knickerbockers," said Sylvia to herself, long pointed-toed shoes, like canoes, and on the head a little cap edged with gold, half coronet, half smoking cap, it seemed to her.

Where had she ever seen this old-world figure before?
She gazed at him in perplexity.
"Why are you so frightened, Mademoiselle ?" said the stranger, and curiously enough his voice sounded very like that of the most amiable of her cocked-hat friends.
Sylvia hesitated.
"I don't think I am frightened," she said, and though she spoke English and the stranger had addressed her in French, he seemed quite to understand her.

"I am only tired, and there was something the matter.
I can't remember what it was." "I know," replied her visitor.