thy aunt to make haste with dinner. I'm as
hungry as a wolf; run, or I shall cat thee!"

The child laughed, and clumped into the
kitchen with his message, while M. Leroy
proceeded up-stairs to his sitting-room, and, to
expedite matters, drew the table into its place, and
out of the corner cupboard extracted his bottle
of vin ordinaire: wretched thin stuff: a
tumbler, a coarse, plain linen tablecloth, and a
napkin to match, rolled within its ivory ring, on
which an inscription hospitably wished the user
"Good appetite."

While occupied in these arrangements, a back
door, leading, through the tortuous ways I have
described, to the other rooms, above and below,
opened, and Jeanne made her appearance to lay
the cloth.

"Par exemple, M. le Curé"!" was her
exclamation, when she saw how her master was
employed; and taking the things from his hands,
she began to perform her service. She was a
good-looking woman, of about four or five and
twenty, but, like nearly all French peasants,
appeared some years older. Her features were
regular, with the exception of a somewhat
coarse mouth; her dark eyes were fine, and
surmounted by well-marked brows, and her
complexion was of a rich warm brown, with a good
deal of colour. Altogether, a handsome specimen
of her class, but with a taciturn gravity of
countenance and demeanour somewhat unusual
to it.

The curé sat down in his arm-chair, with a
book, while Jeanne brushed round the table and
about the room. It was evident his reading
occupied little of his attention; for, whenever he
could direct it unobserved to the servant he did
so, and finally, when she left the room, he flung
down the volume, murmuring, with an expression
of profound concern,

"The poor girl! the unhappy!" and remaining
absorbed in evidently painful reflections till
the sound of her by no means light step on the
stairs aroused him.

But it must have been no common grief that
could materially affect the curé's appetite, and
when Jeanne had produced, in one course, the
whole of the dinner, consisting of the usual
soup and bouilli, a salad, a dish of potatoes
cooked in butter, and a dish of the light-red
pine-apple strawberries, of which whole fields
are grown wherever the vicinity of a town ol
any size affords a market for them, M. Leroy
fell-to with hearty good will and made very
short work of the repast. Then he sat down
in the arm-chair, and quietly composed himself
to his post-prandial nap, while the roses nodded
outside the window at him, and a blackbird,
from the grove below, sang thanks to him for
the ruddy cherries to which he and his young
family were made welcome.

Jeanne's and Claude's dinner followed that of
the master, and, the meal concluded, the former
filled a little basket with eggs, and gave it to
the boy.

"Go, my child," she said, " with this to
Madame Morel; say Monsieur le Cure sends
them with many compliments. Then go on to
the Croix-Blanché, and ask, from Monsieur le
Curé, how Madame Ledoux and her daughter
are, and, coming back, you may call at Uncle
Jacques's, and say to Pierrette I wish she would
come down the first day this week she can get
int. Go, and don't break the eggs, and bring
back the basket. Mind."

Jeanne watched at the door till the boy had
passed through and latched the garden-gate.
Then she returned to the kitchen, took a large
key down from a nail where it hung beside the
projecting chimney, and once more looking out
and all round, she re-entered and proceeded
through the long dark tortuous passages to the
room that formed the last of the straggling
cries, unlocked the door, and entered.

It was a small gloomy lumber room. In one
corner the long-collected dust had been swept
from the floor, where was spread some fresh
straw, and on it, rolled up, a mattress and some
bedding. After listening intently for a minute,
Jeanne, satisfied by the silence, pulled down a
broken-legged chair and a ragged rug that were
placed on the top of a box in the obscurest part
of the room, and, from within it, drew a bundle
tied up in an old coloured handkerchief. Opening
this carefully, several articles of baby's
clothing, some complete, some in progress, all
of the commonest description, but carefully made
and clean, were disclosed, and Jeanne, taking
working materials from her pocket, began stitching
away at an unfinished frock with feverish
rapidity, still pausing now and then, with that
look of intense anxiety, to listen.

For more than an hour she worked
undisturbed; then, as if fearing to remain longer away
from her usual employments, she, putting into
her pocket a half-finished cap, which might be
worked at in any stray moments, tied up the
bundle, restored it to the box, and again covered
the latter with the rug and chair, as before.
Then carefully locking the door behind her, she
returned to the kitchen.

She did so just in time; for, while she was
putting together the brands that, during her
absence, had burnt through in the middle, and,
falling outwards, become scattered and nearly
extinguished, an old crone, half-beggar, half-
peasant, and commonly reported witch, tottered
into the kitchen. Standing just within the
threshold, her knotted claw-like hands crossed
on the top of her staff, she gave Jeanne a bon
jour, and there remained, contemplating the girl,
with a grin intolerable to be borne.

"Sit down, Mère Gausset," Jeanne said,
crossing herself in secret, as she turned to place
a chair lor the unwelcome guest. " Sit down;
the warm weather's come at last; that ought to
agree with your rheumatism."

'* Eh, eh, well enough, well enough. How is
Monsieur le Curé? and yourself?" suddenly,
and with a scrutinising look.

"Monsieur's well; and I, I'm always well."

"So much the better, so much the better, my
girl; ready to dance at the wedding on Thursday ?
Ah, it'll be a fine wedding.""