as they were required while Jeff and Feliciane were busied
in the kitchen trying to get up something for a meal.

Jeanne fell to studying the fair face of the woman before her wondering
over and over how one so beautiful could be so cruel.

"Well! Have you finished staring at me?" demanded Madame suddenly. "Have
done with your impudence, girl. You make me nervous."

"I beg your pardon," murmured Jeanne shrinking from the light in her
aunt's eyes. "I do not wish to make you nervous. I was just thinking----"

"I don't care what you are doing," said the other sharply. "I do not wish
to be stared at." She sat back in her chair, and relapsed into silence.
Jeanne withdrew her gaze, but it wandered unconsciously to her uncle's
face. He moved uneasily, but made no comment.

Presently Madame gave utterance to a harsh laugh, and looked at the girl
strangely.

"How would you like this for a home?" she asked abruptly.

"What do you mean?" cried Jeanne.

"Just what I say. How would you like to live here?"

"I would not like it," replied the girl decidedly. "I like my own home
best. There is no place like New York."

"Perhaps you may change your mind," and Madame gave vent to a peal of
unpleasant laughter. "I believe that you will have the opportunity."

"What do you mean?" asked Jeanne again, but the lady's only answer was
a shrug of her shoulders.

A vague uneasiness filled Jeanne's mind at her strange demeanor. She kept
looking at the girl with a curious, half triumphant expression, while
ever and anon she laughed in that strange way that made the girl's blood
chill with apprehension. She was glad when at last Mr. Vance ordered them
all to retire.

"There are plenty of rooms and good beds," he said. "Very likely the
people left hurriedly else they would have taken them with them, or
perhaps they left them because they will soon return. However it may
be, we must get a good night's rest for to-morrow we have a long day's
ride before us."

Jeanne chose a room at the end of the upstairs hall and entering it closed
the door securely. Tired as she was from her long ride she could not
sleep but lay thinking deeply about her aunt's strange behavior. She had
become so accustomed to the lady's vagaries that she knew that some new
idea had suggested itself to her and she felt that it related to herself.

At last her eyes grew heavy, and soon she fell into the deep untroubled
sleep of youth.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE