f his son,
and Jean was not the man to inform him.

About a fortnight later, near the close of a weary day, two discharged
and maimed soldiers approached the secluded hamlet of De Lorme. The
elder was crippled by a shot in the knee, the younger had lost an
arm,--his right arm. He was pale and thin from illness, and on one
cheek was a bright red seam, from a deep sabre-cut. So Jean, the
handsome young conscript, came home.

He had borne his misfortune very cheerfully at first, but now at every
step he grew gloomy and lost courage. To his comrade, Jaques Paval, he
frankly confided his trouble.

It was a fear that, maimed and disfigured as he was, his Marie would no
longer be willing to accept him for her husband. This fear grew so
strong on him, that, when they came in sight of the dear old cottage,
he paused in an olive-grove, and sent his friend forward to prepare his
betrothed and his mother for the sad change they must see in him.

[Illustration: He paused in an olive-grove.]

Jaques found Marie leaning over the gate, looking down the street. She
was always looking out for returned soldiers now. She seemed
disappointed that Jaques was not Jean, but greeted him kindly, and soon
drew from him all he had to tell of her doubting lover. Calling Mother
Moreau, and Jean's young brother, she ran before them down the street,
and soon cheered the sinking heart under the olive-trees with a glad
embrace and a welcome home. Then came the young brother, laughing loud
to keep from crying, and affecting not to see that dangling
coat-sleeve, or to miss the grasp of the lost right hand. Then the
mother, thanking God, as she fell on the breast of her son, putting the
hair from his scarred forehead and blessing him. Pretty Marie had
shrunk a little from that ugly red mark on his cheek, but the mother
kissed that very spot most tenderly, with murmurs of pitying love.

The next day, Jean generously offered to free Marie from her
engagement; but she would not be freed, reproaching him with tears for
thinking so poorly of her as to suppose she would forsake him when he
needed her most.

"But, Marie," he said, "we shall be so poor. My pension will be small,
and I can do little with only a left arm."

"But, Jean, I am young and strong, and--"

"God and the saints will help us," interposed Mother Moreau.

Jean and Marie responded by silently crossing themselves; and the
marriage was fixed for the first Sunday of the next