ss in being so
tender to my poor little motherless babe. Will you answer me,
therefore, a question? Will--will--suppose, I would say, that I wished
the whereabouts of this, my child, unknown to any one--would she be
safe in the house of this mercer you speak of? Also--if you--should be
asked by any one--high or low, here in Dijon--if, _par hasard_, you
know, or could guess, had indeed the faintest suspicion, where that
little child might be--would you hold your peace? Would you let this
be a secret locked only in your own honest heart?"

"Would I? Ay, monsieur, I would! Your child has slept with my little
_fillettes_; when I went to arouse them ere dawn they all lay cheek to
cheek, and with their arms entwined. She is as one of mine, therefore;
she shall be as sacred. _Je le jure._"

"Give me your friend's name and address," St. Georges made answer.
"What you have said is enough. I trust you as I should have trusted
her dead mother." And he took his tablets from his pouch as he spoke.

"Write," said the woman, "the name of Le Sieur Blecy, 5 Rue de
Timoleon. That is sufficient. His wife Susanne will arrange with you
for the safety of the little one when she knows that I have sent you."

"But," exclaimed St. Georges, "can you give me no line, no word, to
her or him? Surely she will not accept me on my own assurances.
Besides, 'tis much to ask. She will scarcely receive my child into her
house, into her family, without some proofs from you."

"How," exclaimed the woman, "can I send such proof? I can not
write--alas! I can not even read." She blushed as she spoke--though
truly she need not have done so, since in all Burgundy, in the days
of Louis _le Dieudonne_, not one in a hundred could do more than
she--and he himself reddened at having so put her to shame, and
muttered some sort of excuse under his thick mustache.

"Send some trifle that she will recognise--some little thing she will
know to have been yours," exclaimed the mousquetaire from his seat in
the chimney-piece. "She will know that."

"Ha!" she said, recovering instantly from her confusion, "and so I
will." Then, casting her eyes round the great stone-floor kitchen and
seeing nothing therein that she could send to her friend, she ran up
the stairs and came back bearing in her hand a little missal, with her
name written in it.

"It was given to me by Susanne's mother on my wedding day, she saying
that, though I could not follow the service with it, my c