Something that could not be put into words stirred within him, as, looking up at the soft silken flutterings of the old flag, he listened for the first time to the story of the Pilgrim Fathers.
The rabbit cooked slowly, so slowly that there was time for Jules to learn how to play mumble-peg while they waited.

At last it was done, and Joyce proudly plumped it into the platter that had been waiting for it.
Marie had already brought out a bountiful lunch, cold meats and salad and a dainty pudding.

By the time that Joyce had added her contribution to the feast, there was scarcely an inch of the table left uncovered.
Jules did not know the names of half the dishes.
Not many miles away from that old garden, scattered up and down the Loire throughout all the region of fair Tourraine, rise the turrets of many an old chateau.

Great banquet halls, where kings and queens once feasted, still stand as silent witnesses of a gay bygone court life; but never in any chateau or palace among them all was feast more thoroughly enjoyed than this impromptu dinner in the garden, where a little goatherd was the only guest.
It was an enchanted spot to Jules, made so by the magic of Joyce's wonderful gift of story-telling.

For the first time in his life that he could remember, he heard of Santa Claus and Christmas trees, of Bluebeard and Aladdin's lamp, and all the dear old fairy tales that were so entrancing he almost forgot to eat.
Then they played that he was the prince, Prince Ethelried, and that the goats in the carriage-house were his royal steeds, and that Joyce was a queen whom he had come to visit.
[Illustration: A LESSON IN PATRIOTISM.] But it came to an end, as all beautiful things must do.