view was a bright pleasure in the triumph of her
skill; and when her considerate guardian endeavoured to impress on her
that there was no necessity for vexing herself with the task, she turned
round on him with the exclamation, 'Nay, dear father, do you not see
it is my great satisfaction to be able to do something for our good
hostess, so that my daughter and I be not a burden to her?'

'Well spoken, my Lady,' said the pastor; 'there is real nobility in that
way of thinking. Yet, remember, Noemi is not without means; she feels
not the burden. And the flock contribute enough for the shepherd's
support, and yours likewise.'

'Then let her give it to the poor creatures who so often come in
begging, and saying they have been burned out of house and home by one
party or the other,' said Eustacie. 'Let me have my way, dear sir;
Soeur Bernadine always said I should be a prime _menagere_. I like it so
much.'

And Madame de Ribaumont mixed sugar and dough, and twisted quaint
shapes, and felt important and almost light-hearted, and sang over her
work and over her child songs that were not always Marot's psalms; and
that gave the more umbrage to Noemi, because she feared that Maitre
Gardon actually like to hear them, though, should their echo reach the
street, why it would be a peril, and still worse, a horrible scandal
that out of that sober, afflicted household should proceed profane tunes
such as court ladies sang.

CHAPTER XX. THE ABBE.

By the day and night her sorrows fall
Where miscreant hands and rude
Have stained her pure, ethereal pall
With many a martyr's blood.
And yearns not her maternal heart
To hear their secret sighs,
Upon whose doubting way apart
Bewildering shadows rise?--KEBLE

It was in the summer twilight that Eustacie, sitting on the doorstep
between the two rooms, with her baby on her knees, was dreamily humming
to her a tune, without even words, but one that she loved, because she
had first learnt to sing it with Berenger and his friend Sidney to the
lute of the latter; and its notes always brought before her eyes the
woods of Montpipeau. Then it was that, low and soft as was the voice,
that befell which Noemi had feared: a worn, ragged-looking young man,
who had been bargaining at the door for a morsel of bread in exchange
for a handkerchief, started at the sound, and moved so as to like into
the house.

Noemi was at the moment not a