Jean D'Orbais was born under the shadow of Reims Cathedral. From his earliest childhood he sees it growing in beauty through the efforts of the master craftsmen who are at work on it. When he is ten years old, he is apprenticed to a goldsmith, and begins his education in the arts. The story of his career, his escapades, his ambitions, and his final success, is enthralling. But it is not Jean alone who interests us. Through his eyes the child sees the bustling town of Reims in the fourteenth century, with its crafts and guilds, its merchants and its beggars, its nobles and its soldiers. He hears too of the Maid of Orleans, and her fight for France. Miss Lownsbery combines historic truth and accuracy with an interesting and living story. No textbook would give a child so vivid a picture as this does, and few other stories will so completely capture his imagination.