Mrs. Thompson, widow of an English civil servant in India, had placed her older daughter Lilian in a boarding school in Le Puy, and with her younger child Mimmy went there to he near her. At their hotel was a courteous and sympathetic Frenchman, M. Lacordaire, whom she took to he the local banker, and whom she came to love. On a sight-seeing trip to the Chateau of Prince Polignac he asked her to marry him, explaining that he was the village tailor, and although she was distressed at his lack of position, she accepted him.