Her hair, parted in the centre to frame her small face, fell over her breasts in two thick heavy plaits which reached below her knees. It was the colour of corn which is just ripening, of the sun when it first rises from the horizon. It was also, she was to learn later, the colour and softness of budding mimosa. It was hair which is only found on Anglo Saxons, the fair flaxen hair which goes with the blue eyes and pale complexions of the English.

But astonishingly Mistral’s eyes were not blue. They were dark, almost purple in their depths, and fringed with dark eyelashes which gave her a strange and unexpected look of mystery.

Watching her, Emilie wondered for a fleeting moment why she had ever thought that Mistral resembled her mother, and then, even as she wondered, the resemblance was there again. A turn of the head, a spontaneous smile, and it was Alice, not Mistral, who stood at the foot of the bed, her eyes looking at her with an expression of unsuppressed joy and happiness. Yet Alice’s eyes had been blue and she could never have been mistaken for anything but what she was – an Englishwoman and an aristocrat.

But, Emilie acknowledged grudgingly, Mistral’s beauty was even more striking. That strange combination of golden hair and dark eyes was fascinatingly lovely, her lips, perfectly curved, were naturally red against the fairness of her skin. But there was just something faintly un-English about her, something which made one wonder what secrets those dark eyes held.

Nevertheless there was no possibility of being mistaken about one thing – Mistral was a lady, as her mother had been. From the crown of her head, held proudly with an indescribable grace, to the soles of her small feet with their high-arched insteps she was an aristocrat. There was something in the manner in which she moved, in the long thin fingers and her tiny straight nose which proclaimed her blue blood as clearly as if she carried her pedigree in her hand.

Emilie gave a little sigh and held out her hand. Mistral flew to her side.

‘Bonjour, Aunt Emilie. Do forgive me for having slept so late, but I was so tired last night that I remembered nothing until I awoke but a few moments ago and wondered where I was.’

Mistral’s French was pure and perfect.

‘I wanted you to sleep late, dear,’ Emilie replied. ‘And now Jeanne will bring you your breakfast. Do you remember Jeanne?’

As swift as a swallow’s flight Mistral had crossed the room and was holding out both her hands to Jeanne.

‘Of course I remember you,’ she cried. ‘I remember the bonbons you used to give me when you brushed my hair. When I first went to the Convent, I missed both your bonbons and you more than I can say. I had to brush my own hair then and how I hated it for being long and getting into tangles! I used to long to cut it off.’