a
letter.

At sight of it Dormy Jamais crawled quickly over to where the Femme de
Ballast sat, and, 'reaching out, he touched it with both hands.

"Princess of all the world--bidemme," he said, and he threw out his arms
and laughed.

Two great tears were rolling down Maitresse Aimable's cheeks.

"How to remember she, ma fuifre!" said Jean Touzel. "But go on to the
news of her."

Maitresse Aimable spread the letter out and looked at it lovingly. Her
voice rose slowly up like a bubble from the bottom of a well, and she
spoke.

"Ah man pethe benin, when it come, you are not here, my Jean. I take it
to the Greffier to read for me. It is great news, but the way he read so
sour I do not like, ba su! I see Maitre Damian the schoolmaster pass my
door. I beckon, and he come. I take my letter here, I hold it close to
his eyes. 'Read on that for me, Maitre Damian--you,' I say. O my good,
when he read it, it sing sweet like a song, pergui! Once, two, three
times I make him read it out--he has the voice so soft and round, Maitre
Damian there."

"Glad and good!" interrupted Jean. "What is the news, my wife? What is
the news of highnesss--he?"

Maitresse Aimable smiled, then she tried to speak, but her voice broke.

"The son--the son--at last he is the Duke of Bercy. E'fin, it is all
here. The new King of France, he is there at the palace when the child
which it have sleep on my breast, which its mother I have love all the
years, kiss her son as the Duke of Bercy."

"Ch'est ben," said Jean, "you can trust the good God in the end."

Dormy Jamais did not speak. His eyes were fastened upon the north, where
lay the Paternoster Rocks. The sun had gone down, the dusk was creeping
on, and against the dark of the north there was a shimmer of fire--a
fire that leapt and quivered about the Paternoster Rocks.

Dormy pointed with his finger. Ghostly lights or miracle of Nature,
these fitful flames had come and gone at times these many years, and now
again the wonder of the unearthly radiance held their eyes.

"Gatd'en'ale, I don't understand you--you!" said Jean, speaking to the
fantastic fires as though they were human.

"There's plenty things we see we can't understand, and there's plenty
we understand we can't never see. Ah bah, so it goes!" said Maitresse
Aimable, and she put Guida's letter in her bosom.

.......................

Upon the hill of Plemont above them, a stone taken from the chimney of
the hut where G