ark,
Perrine was forced to take her leave. She had never suspected that all
this time Maitre Gardon had been hidden in the refectory below, and
still less did she guess that soon after her departure the old man was
installed as her Lady's chief attendant. It was impossible that Nanon
should stay with Eustacie; she had her day's work to attend to, and her
absence would have excited suspicion. He, therefore, came partly up
the stairs, and calling to Nanon, proffered himself to sit with '_cette
pauvre_,' and make a signal in case Nanon should be wanted. The good
woman was thus relieved of a great care. She would not have dared to
ask it of him, but with a low reverence, she owned that it was an act of
great charity towards the poor lady, who, she hoped, was falling into
a tranquil sleep, but who she would hardly have dared to leave. The
pastor, though hardships, battles, and persecutions had left him
childless, had been the father of a large family; and perhaps he was
drawn the more strongly towards the mother and child, because he almost
felt as if, in fulfilling the part of a father towards the widow of
Berenger de Ribaumont, he was taking her in the stead of the widow of
his own Theodore.

Had the little Baronne de Ribaumont been lodged in a tapes-tried
chamber, between curtains of velvet and gold, with a _beauffet_ by her
side glistening with gold and silver plate, as would have befitted her
station, instead of lying on a bed of straw, with no hangings to the
walls save cobwebs and hay, and wallflowers, no _beauffet_ but the old
rickety table, no attendants but Nanon and M. Gardon, no visitors but
the two white owls, no provisions save the homely fare that rustic
mothers lived upon--neither she nor her babe could have thriven better,
and probably not half so well. She had been used to a hardy, out-of-door
life, like the peasant women; and she was young and strong, so that she
recovered as they did. If the April shower beat in at the window, or the
hole in the roof, they made a screen of canvas, covered her with cloaks,
and heaped them with hay, and she took no harm; and the pure open
air that blew in was soft with all the southern sweetness of early
spring-tide, and the little one throve in it like the puff-ball owlets
in the hayloft, or the little ring-doves in the ivy, whose parent's
cooing voice was Eustacie's favourite music. Almost as good as these
her fellow-nestlings was the little Moonbeam, _la petite Rayonette