she
made her way into one of the long shady lanes of the Bocage. It was
nearly dark, and very muddy, but she had all the familiarity of a native
with the way, and the farm, where she had trotted about in her infancy
like a peasant's child, always seemed like home to her. It had been a
prime treat to visit it during her time of education at the convent, and
there was an association of pleasure in treading the path that seemed to
bear her up, and give her enjoyment in the mere adventure and feeling
of escape and liberty. She had no fear of the dark, nor of the distant
barking of dogs, but the mire was deep, and it was plodding work in
those heavy _sabots_, up the lane that led from the convent; and the
poor child was sorely weary long before she came to the top of the low
hill that she used scarcely to know to be rising round at all. The stars
had come out; and as she sat for a few moments to rest on a large
stone, she saw the lights of the cottage fires in the village below, and
looking round could also see the many gleams in the convent windows, the
read fire-light in her own room among them. She shivered a little as
she thought of its glowing comfort, but turned her back resolutely,
tightened her cloak over her head, looked up to a glimmer in the
watch-tower of her own castle far above her on the hill and closed
against her; and then smiled to herself with hope at the sparkle of a
window in a lonely farmhouse among the fields.

With fresh vigour she rose, and found her way through lane and
field-path to the paddock where she had so often played. Here a couple
of huge dogs dashed forward with an explosion of barks, dying away into
low growls as she spoke to them by their names, and called aloud on
'Blaise!' and 'Mere Perrine!' The cottage door was opened, the light
streamed forth, and a man's head in a broad had appeared. 'Veronique,
girl, is this an hour to be gadding abroad?'

'Blaise, do you not know me?'

'It is our Lady. Ah!'

The next moment the wanderer was seated in the ample wooden chair of the
head of the family, the farmer and his two stout sons standing before
her as their liege Lady, and Mere Perrine hanging over her, in great
anxiety, not wholly dispelled by her low girlish laugh, partly of
exultation at her successful evasion, partly of amusement at their
wonder, and partly, too, because it was so natural to her to enjoy
herself at that hearth that she could not help it. A savoury mess from
the grea