ma condition," she was murmuring to herself, and she did not cease her pious exercise until M. de Tracy had walked on.

"I wonder why that girl always behaves so strangely?" thought Jean, as he walked away. "Can my mother have vexed her in any way? I must ask my wife."

Madame Jean held up her pretty little hands at the question.

"Mon ami, it is not I who would like to answer for what your mother may or may not have said," laughed she.

But Madame de Tracy had said nothing, and indeed she was a favourite with the people all about. They laughed at her flightiness and expansiveness, mistrusted her promise, but they could not help liking her. Reine took to her more kindly than to the rest of the family; all her worst self would come up when she was brought in contact with these people, who came stepping down from their superior grandeur to be intrusively civil to those who did not want them. "What does he mean by his Mademoiselle Chrétiens, and eyeglasses and politeness?" thought the foolish girl. "I know well enough at what rate he holds us, and I try to tell him so in my way." Reine was not a bad girl, but the sight of all this prosperity turned her sour. "How do you do? Take care of your hay'-Madame Jean's maddening little nod as she trips in her Paris toilette, and Mademoiselle Marthe's great blue eyes-it all offends me," said Reine, cutting the matter short.

This was the class to which her mother belonged. These were the men and the women who had cast her off, never forgiven her-forgotten her utterly. These were the people who would do the same to-morrow again; who would insult her and scorn her, as they had scorned her mother before her, for all her beauty, and good blood, and wealth, if—if she were

REINE'S CONCLUSIONS.

131

not firm to a certain resolve she had made. No, she would never marry, never, never. Not if he came back again and again to ask her. Reine had an instinct about the person of whom she was thinking. She believed that no one whom she loved could help loving her; but she was proud at the same time. She knew her own worth, and a poor struggling painter, with all his education, did not seem to her any very brilliant match for an heiress like herself, with the blood of the D'Argouges in her veins, and the farms at Tracy, at Petitport, the oyster-parks at Courseulles, the houses at Bayeux, for her dower. "Venez, mes enfants," said Reine, shutting up her prayer-book when the hour was over, and leading them back by the way she had come under the archway across the great court, where Paris was lying stretched out like a lion in the sun, and where Reine looked to find her grandfather on the bench where he was accustomed to smoke his afternoon pipe. There was only Dominique on the bench stretched out on his back at full length.

Reine went up and shook him angrily.

Dominique, are you not ashamed to sleep like a sluggard? Where is Petitpère ?"

Dominique sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"He is asleep

in the kitchen," said he, hazarding the statement.

"Ah," cried Reine, taking one step forward and looking through the barred window, "he is not in the kitchen. You know as well as I do where he is gone."

While Dominique and the children were having a game in front of the farm-gates, which made the old place echo with Toto's screams of laughter, Reine was marching down the little village street, tall, erect, with her terrible face on. Poor Reine! poor Petitpère! He was discoursing very happily and incoherently in one of the little bowers at the back of

the Golden Sun. A very little of M. Pélottier's cider was enough to change the aspect of things for poor old Chrétien. He was treating everybody, and offering his granddaughter in marriage to another old gentleman in a blouse, sitting at the same little table.

"Je te l'accorde," said père Chrétien, "avec ses cent cinquante mille livres de rente. Mon ami Barbeau, elle est à toi."

"Merci bén, mon ami," said Barbeau, thumping the little wooden table.

"And Madame Barbeau, what will she think of the arrangement?" said a countrywoman, who was sitting at the next table, looking round grinning.

Barbeau looked puzzled. "Ma femme ?" said he. "Le

père Chrétien se charge de tout.

Buvons à sa santé !"

It was at this instant that the bottle was suddenly wrenched out of poor old Chrétien's trembling hand, and that Reine, pale and with black eyes gleaming, took him by the arm in her unflinching gripe.

"Come," she said, with a glance of indignation at the people who were grinning all round about under Pélottier's little vine bower, and she walked away back towards Tracy with her prisoner. Old Chrétien shambled beside her in silence; he knew her too well to attempt to make conversation under the circumstances. Only once a sort of groan escaped her. As they were turning the corner by the church, again she came upon the whole community of Tracys,-Jean and his wife, and his wife's brother and sister, and the three children running on ahead.

Old Chrétien attempted a low, uncertain bow. Reine thought she saw them smile. She gave one fierce glance and walked on her heart was beating with indignation, with

pride and passionate shame. They scorned her and her grandfather. Their glances, their laughter maddened her. There she was, condemned for life to live with a few tipsy men and vulgar dull women, who saw no shame in their husbands' degradation. There were those people born into an atmosphere of light and refinement. What had they done, what had she done, to deserve such happiness, such misery? Why was she not like the rest of her class? Poor grandfather-poor old man, he was only what he had been taught to be from his earliest youth: his servile bow to the grandees from the castle, what was that but a part and parcel of the rest? She turned to him with a sudden tender impulse of pity and protection, and yet all the time a fierce impatience and anger were tearing at the woman's heart; as she walked along the dusty road, she stamped her foot in the dust once.

"What a temper she has, that Reine," whispered Marion Lefebvre, who saw them pass. "Poor père Chrétien, she leads him a rude life."

Poor Reine, she was wrong to be angry, to be impatient, to wish for the things which only time and silent progress can bring about. Like many another before her, she was a little in advance of her days, and of the people among whom she lived. And the price people are condemned to pay for being somewhat ahead of their neighbours, is a heavy one.

CHAPTER IX.

REINE IN HER FARMYARD.

The healthy, wealthy wise affirm,

That early birds secure the worm

(The worm rose early too).

Who scorns his couch, should glean by rights
A world of pleasant sounds and sights,

That vanish with the dew.

F. LOCKER.

CATHERINE found herself transported, as if by magie, from the long dreary brick-enclosed hours to a charming world, where vine garlands were wreathing under cloudless skies. There was at once more light, more sound, more sentiment and drowsy peace in it than she had ever known in all her life before. She awakened to a dazzle streaming through the vine round her window, and flickering upon the red brick floor of her little room; to a glitter, to a cheerful vibration of noises. Some one would bring her a little roll and a cup of steaming coffee, and then, when she was dressed, the children would come tapping and fumbling at her door. Little Henri de Tracy sometimes attempted a réveillé upon his horn, which would be instantly suppressed by a voice outside. Nanine, who was nine years old, and had elegant little manners like a lady, would wish Catherine good morning; and Madelaine, who was four and "très raisonnable" Suzanne her nurse