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But scarcely had these families become English and been absorbed than a fresh tide flowed in. The Revocation of the Edict brought a new set of exiles, and once more the French tongue was heard in the streets of Rye and the lanes round Vinehall and Leasan. These settlers were more interesting to Louise than those she had found on her arrival. They were from the France that she knew, and they were of her own class.

She viewed them, however, with mixed feelings. Socially and nationally they were her people, all she had of her people now that both her parents were dead and a distant cousin had inherited the Aurey estate. But they were of the Protestant religion, and to her a French Protestant was a low fellow, a traitor and an apostate. The religion of her husband and her husband's family she accepted as a natural growth. England one knew as a Protestant country. But France was Catholic, and Protestantism a disease of that fair body. In her heart she approved of the politics that had driven out the Huguenots and yet she lived in the country that had received them with open arms. She was in an ambiguous position, especially since her own religion was treasonable in strict law, and but for her husband's protection and the recent growth of tolerance in the country, would have involved her in penalties not unlike theirs. She felt that she could not meet them with the warmth and candour that their common blood demanded, so had avoided them as far as her situation allowed.