to the new-born complexion, and increased that curious
resemblance so often borne for the first few hours of life to the future
self. Eustacie's cry at once was, 'Himself, himself--his very face! Let
me have her, my own moonbeam--his child--my joy!'

The tears, so long denied, rushed down like summer rain as she clasped
the child in her arms. Dame Perrine wandered to and fro, like one beside
herself, not only at her Lady's wretched accommodations, but at the ill
omens of the moonlight illumination, of the owls who snapped and hissed
incessantly over the hay, and above all the tears over the babe's face.
She tried to remonstrate with Eustacie, but was answered only, 'Let me
weep! Oh, let me weep! It eases my heart! It cannot hurt my little one!
She cannot weep for her father herself, so I must weep for her.'

The weeping was gentle, not violent; and Dame Rotrou thought it did good
rather than harm. She was chiefly anxious to be quit of Perrine, who,
however faithful to the Lady of Ribaumont, must not be trusted to learn
the way to this Huguenot asylum, and must be escorted back by Rotrou ere
peep of dawn. The old woman knew that her own absence from home would be
suspicious, and with many grumblings submitted; but first she took the
child from Eustacie's reluctant arms, promising to restore her in a few
moments, after finishing dressing her in the lace-edged swaddling bands
so carefully preserved ever since Eustacie's own baby hood. In these
moments she had taken them all by surprise by, without asking any
questions, sprinkling the babe with water, and baptizing her by the
hereditary name of Berangere, the feminine of the only name Eustacie had
always declared her son should bear. Such baptisms were not unfrequently
performed by French nurses, but Eustacie exclaimed with a sound half
dismay, half indignation.

'_Eh quoi_!' said Perrine, 'it is only _ondoyee_. You can have all the
ceremonies if ever time shall fit; but do you think I could leave my
Lady's child--mere girl though it be--alone with owls, and _follets_,
and REVENANTS, and heretics, and she unbaptized? She would be a
changeling long ere morning, I trow.'

'Come, good woman,' said Rotrou, from between the trusses of hay at the
entrance; 'you and I must begin our Colin-Mail-lard again, or it may be
the worse for us both.'

And with the promise of being conducted to Eustacie again in three
nights' time, if she would meet her guide at the cross-roads after d