iment. I think I should not make a bad soldier. Everything is going
round and round in my head like a millwheel. The first thing to do is
to see about my mother, who is lamenting down there at the house--I must
find her a comfortable place to live."

The young girl had become very thoughtful.

"Claudet," replied she, "I know you are very proud, very sensitive, and
could not wish to hurt your feelings. Therefore, I pray you not to take
in ill part that which I am going to say-in short, if you should get
into any trouble, you will, I hope, remember that you have friends at La
Thuiliere, and that you will come to seek us."

The 'grand chasserot' reddened.

"I shall never take amiss what you may say to me, Reine!" faltered he;
"for I can not doubt your good heart--I have known it since the time
when we played together in the cure's garden, while waiting for the time
to repeat the catechism. But there is no hurry as yet; the heir will not
arrive for several weeks, and by that time, I trust, we shall have had a
chance to turn round."

They had reached the boundary of the forest where the fields of La
Thuiliere begin.

By the last fading light of day they could distinguish the black outline
of the ancient forge, now become a grange, and a light was twinkling in
one of the low windows of the farm.

"Here you are at home," continued Claudet, laying the bundle of nuts
on the flat stone wall which surrounded the farm buildings; "I wish you
good-night."

"Will you not come in and get warm?"

"No; I must go back," replied he.

"Good-night, then, Claudet; au revoir and good courage!"

He gazed at her for a moment in the deepening twilight, then, abruptly
pressing her hands:

"Thank you, Reine," murmured he in a choking voice, "you are a good
girl, and I love you very much!"

He left the young mistress of the farm precipitately, and plunged again
into the woods.

CHAPTER II. THE HEIR TO VIVEY

While these events were happening at Vivey, the person whose
name excited the curiosity and the conversational powers of the
villagers--Marie-Julien de Buxieres--ensconced in his unpretentious
apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the
astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary's first letter. The
announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were,
had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical. He
remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a