her door, to tell her, with as conciliatory a grin
as usual, that Madame would again receive her.
She followed him, timidly, but with a happy reliance
gradually growing upon her. Everything
told her that in this house she had nothing to fear.

Madame de Kergolay bade Lily come very
close, and kissed her on the forehead.

"I am a very weak suffering old woman, my
darling," she said, "and constant pain makes me
cross and irritable, sometimes. When I scold
you (which will not be often, I hope), you must
smile and kiss me. When I scold Vieux Sablons,
he rubs the buttons of his coat with his sleeve;
which relieves him. Formerly he used to whistle,
but I prohibited that, as an impertinence. And
now you must sit down on that little stool by
my feet, and tell me everything about yourself.
I need not ask you for the truth. It is written
in your face."

It was, indeed. The girl drew the stool close
to the old lady's chair, and, her brown curls
nestling amongst the draperies of her protectress,
told, in artless simplicity, the short and sorrowful
story of her life. There were no startling
incidents, no romantic episodes. It was a mean,
common-place little tale; but Madame de
Kergolay shed tears as she listened to it.

"You have been very unhappy, my child," she
began, when Lily had ended. "Let us pray
that the dark days are over, and that the bright
time is coming. In His inscrutable wisdom and
mercy, the Almighty is often pleased to afflict
most sorely those of His creatures who seem
least deserving of his anger. You have had,
indeed, to suffer two most terrible deprivations.
No father to protect, no mother to cherish and
fondle you! Ah! poor little lamb! my heart
bleeds for you. But we must see what a feeble,
bedridden invalid can do to console you; yes, we
must try to make you as happy as the day is long."

''There is only one thing that I am afraid of,
madame," faltered Lily.

"And what is that, my child?"

"If the lady—the strange lady—the one who
was called countess—should find me out? If
she went to Mademoiselle Marcassin's, and
discovered where I was! Oh! it would be dreadful."

"Foolish little thing. After deserting you so
long, it is not probable that she will care to
inquire about you. If she be indeed your mother,
she must be a cruel and hard-hearted woman—a
scandal to her sex. But I cannot believe that
any mother could be so inhuman. No, no; she
must be some wicked and intriguing woman,
who, to further bad designs of her own, has been
endeavouring to alienate you from your real
parents. Let us think no more about her.
Justice, divine or human, must, sooner or later,
overtake a creature so abandoned. Let us
indulge in hopes, rather, that some day the two
men who placed you at the school at
Clapham, and one of whom must have been your
father, may be met with. But, until they do come
forward, and under any circumstances, you are
not the less to be my dear adopted child."

They had much converse that afternoon; and
an impertinent little alabaster clock on the
mantelpiece had proclaimed, in a voice very much
resembling the barking of a very weak little
puppy, that it was six o'clock, when Vieux
Sablons (who had bestowed a fresh sprinkling
of powder on his bald pate in honour of the
occasion) announced that Madame was served,
and that dinner was ready.

Madame, alas! could not walk to her evening
meal; but as she obstinately refused to be treated
so much like an invalid as to be served in her
bedchamber, she was slowly wheeled in her chair
to the salle-à-manger. The six o'clock dinner
was one of the few links that bound her to the
every-day world; and, whether she dined alone
or in company, the ceremonious announcement
of the banquet was made by Vieux Sablons, and
her modest repast was served up in the apartment
specially provided for the purpose.

The dinner was a very simple, but a very
nice one. They had a soup with bread in
it, a little of the gravy beef with a sharp
sauce, a couple of dishes of vegetables, a roast
chicken, and some cream cheese. The only
evidences of luxury were in the wine, which was
a rare and odoriferous Bordeaux, and in the
dessert, at which a magnificent melon made its
appearance. Everything pertaining to the service
of the table was scrupulously clean, and of
originally costly material, but everything had
plainly seen better days. The tablecloth and
napkins were damask, but worn to the cord, and
as elaborately darned as Vieux Sablons's stockings.
The plate was silver, but rubbed to the last
degree of thinness. The dessert porcelain was
old Sèvres, but cracked and riveted in dozens of
places. Every article, in fact, from the
napkin-holders to the salad-bowl, seemed to have
undergone some terrible shipwreck, but to have
been rescued from the wreckers' hands, and
carefully put together again.

Vieux Sablons was footman, and butler, and
parlour-maid. He solemnly drew the bottle of
Bordeaux, and presented the encrimsoned cork on
a battered little salver of silver to his mistress,
who examined and dismissed it approvingly, saying
that the good Haut Brion showed, as yet, no
signs of deterioration. He carved the melon with
a silver knife and fork in a very imposing manner,
and brought on the two silver sconces containing
lighted candles of yellow wax, with an air worthy
of a sacristan, or of a gentleman of the chamber
to the Great King.

"We do things pretty well in a third floor of
the Marais, hein, little ma'amselle?" he
remarked, with pardonable complacency, as he
lighted Lily to her chamber.

The girl said that everything was beautifully
comfortable.

"With regard to comfort," replied Vieux
Sablons, slightly piqued, "I don't care about it.
I know it not, the comfortable. It concerns me
not. It belongs to the revolutionaries. l alluded
to the style. Do you approve of it?"