low and sunken as if with some
great sorrow, and his large awkward frame seemed wasted. But there was
no reproach mingled with the indescribable sadness of his gaze.

"Your note came to me," he said. "Our mother "--

"She is in there," said Laure in a low, hurried, shaken voice, and she
pointed to the _salon_. "She has come to embrace me,--to make sure
that I am happy. Ah, my God!" and she covered her deathly face with her
hands.

Valentin did not approach her. He could only stand still and look on.
One thought filled his mind.

"We have no time to weep, Laure," he said gently. "We must go on as we
have begun. Give me your hand."

This was all, and then the two went in together, Laure's hand upon her
brother's arm.

It was a marvelous life Mere Giraud lived during the next few days.
Certainly she could not complain that she was not treated with deference
and affection. She wore the silk dress every day; she sat at the
wonderful table, and a liveried servant stood behind her chair; she
drove here and there in a luxurious carriage; she herself, in fact,
lived the life of an aristocrat and a great lady. Better than all the
rest, she found her Laure as gracious and dutiful as her fond heart
could have wished. She spent every hour with her; she showed her all her
grandeurs of jewelry and _toilette_; she was not ashamed of her mother,
untutored and simple as she might be.

"Only she is very pale and quiet," she remarked to Valentin once; "even
paler and more quiet than I should have expected. But then we know that
the rich and aristocratic are always somewhat reserved. It is only the
peasantry and provincials who are talkative and florid. It is natural
that Laure should have gained the manner of the great world."

But her happiness, poor soul, did not last long, and yet the blow God
sent was a kindly one.

One morning as they went out to their carriage Laure stopped to speak to
a woman who crouched upon the edge of the pavement with a child in her
arms. She bent down and touched the little one with her hand, and Mere
Giraud, looking on, thought of pictures she had seen of the Blessed
Virgin, and of lovely saints healing the sick.

"What is the matter?" asked Laure.

The woman looked down at the child and shivered.

"I do not know," she answered hoarsely. "Only we are ill, and God has
forsaken us. We have not tasted food for two days."

Laure took something from her purse and laid it silently in the child's
sm