ore than a
month he could not speak of the circumstance without becoming furious
and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh, yes! She was indeed a demoniac,
this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an inspiration in
thus christening her.

"The stable boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa
in his youth, entertained other opinions. He said with a roguish air:
'She is an old hag who has seen life.'

"If the poor woman had but known!

"The little kind-hearted Celeste did not wait upon her willingly, but I
was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she
was a stranger, of another race; of a different tongue and of another
religion. She was, in fact, a demoniac!

"She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and seeking
God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of
bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed
aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused
at having been found thus, fixing on me terrified eyes like those of an
owl surprised in open day.

"Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the edge of the cliff like a lighthouse signal. She would be
gazing in rapture at the vast sea glittering in the sunlight and the
boundless sky with its golden tints. Sometimes I would distinguish her
at the end of the valley, walking quickly with her elastic English step,
and I would go toward her, attracted by I know not what, simply to see
her illuminated visage, her dried-up, ineffable features, which seemed
to glow with inward and profound happiness.

"I would often encounter her also in the corner of a field, sitting on
the grass under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little religious
booklet lying open on her knee while she gazed out at the distance.

"I could not tear myself away from that quiet country neighborhood,
to which I was attached by a thousand links of love for its wide and
peaceful landscape. I was happy in this sequestered farm, far removed
from everything, but in touch with the earth, the good, beautiful, green
earth. And--must I avow it?--there was, besides, a little curiosity
which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to
become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet and to know
what transpires in the solitary souls of those wandering old English
women.

"We became acquainted in a rather singular