r
anxiously, and spoke of it afterwards to the other servants. They were
all fond of Mademoiselle Elizabeth. She was always kind and gentle to
everybody.

Nearly all the day she sat, poor little saint! by her window looking out
at the passers-by in the snowy street. But she scarcely saw the people at
all, her thoughts were far away, in the little village where she had
always spent her Christmas before. Her Aunt Clotilde had allowed her at
such times to do so much. There had not been a house she had not carried
some gift to; not a child who had been forgotten. And the church on
Christmas morning had been so beautiful with flowers from the hot-houses
of the _chateau_. It was for the church, indeed, that the conservatories
were chiefly kept up. Mademoiselle de Rochemont would scarcely have
permitted herself such luxuries.

But there would not be flowers this year, the _chateau_ was closed; there
were no longer gardeners at work, the church would be bare and cold, the
people would have no gifts, there would be no pleasure in the little
peasants' faces. Little Saint Elizabeth wrung her slight hands together
in her lap.

"Oh," she cried, "what can I do? And then there is the poor here--so
many. And I do nothing. The Saints will be angry; they will not intercede
for me. I shall be lost!"

It was not alone the poor she had left in her village who were a grief to
her. As she drove through the streets she saw now and then haggard faces;
and when she had questioned a servant who had one day come to her to ask
for charity for a poor child at the door, she had found that in parts of
this great, bright city which she had not seen, there was said to be
cruel want and suffering, as in all great cities.

"And it is so cold now," she thought, "with the snow on the ground."

The lamps in the street were just beginning to be lighted when her Uncle
Bertrand returned. It appeared that he had brought back with him the
gentleman with the kind face. They were to dine together, and Uncle
Bertrand desired that Mademoiselle Elizabeth should join them. Evidently
the journey out of town had been delayed for a day at least. There came
also another message: Monsieur de Rochemont wished Mademoiselle to send
to him by her maid a certain box of antique ornaments which had been
given to her by her Aunt Clotilde. Elizabeth had known less of the value
of these jewels than of their beauty. She knew they were beautiful, and
that they had belonged to he