road crossing the lower end of a farmyard, and up to the
right were lines of low buildings where the cows, General Ratoneau's
enemies, were now being safely housed for the night, and a dove-cote
tower, round which a few late pigeons were flapping. To the left another
archway led into a square garden with lines of tall box hedges, where
flowers and vegetables grew all together wildly, and straight on,
through yet a third gate, Angelot came into a stone court in front of
the house, white, tall, and very ancient, with a quaint porch opening
straight upon its wide staircase, which seemed a continuation of the
broad outside steps where Madame de la Mariniere was now giving her
chickens their evening meal.

In spite of the large cap and apron that smothered her, it was plain to
see where Angelot got his singular beauty. His little mother, once upon
a time, had been the loveliest girl in Brittany. Her small, fine,
delicate features, clear dark skin, beautiful velvet eyes and cloud of
dusky hair that curled naturally,--all this still remained, though youth
and freshness and early happiness were gone. Her cheeks were thin, her
eyes and mouth were sad, and yet there was hardly a grey hair in that
soft mass which she covered and hid so puritanically. She had been
married as almost a child, and was still under forty. Her family, very
old but very poor, had married her to Urbain de la Mariniere, quite
without consulting any wishes of hers. He was well off and well
connected, though his old name had never belonged exactly to the _grande
noblesse_. The Pontvieux were too anxious to dispose of their daughter
to consider his free opinions, which, after all, were the fashion in
France before 1789, though never in Brittany. And probably Madame de la
Mariniere's life was saved by her marriage, for she was and remained
just as ardently Catholic and Royalist as her relations who died one by
one upon the scaffold.

She lived at La Mariniere through the Revolution, in outward obedience
to a husband whose opinions she detested, and most of whose actions she
cordially disapproved, though it was impossible not to love him
personally. Gratitude, too, there might very well have been; for
Urbain's popularity had not only guarded his wife and son; it had
enabled her to keep the old Cure of the village safe at La Mariniere
till some little liberty was restored to the Church and he was able to
return to his post without danger. When madame used hard