" and Philippe looked
rather more ardent than Molly liked to see him.

"Of course it would make loads of difference to all of us, Philippe. But
the ghost story, the ghost story! I believe you are afraid to tell it to
me."

"Well, the legend runs that on a stormy night if the floor of the
chapel, which is paved with soapstone, gets wet, the footprints of the
Lady Elizabeth, where she ran across the deluged floor, are plainly
visible. She was just out of her bed and her feet were bare. They say it
shows she had a very small foot with a high arch, the print of the heel,
a space where the instep arches over, and then the ball of the foot and
the tiny toes. Peasants passing in the field above have heard (provided
the night is stormy enough), the agonizing cry, 'God help me, God help
me!' seeming to come from the old steeple."

"How wonderful! But tell me, have you never seen the footprints
yourself?"

"Mother has such a horror of the story and the talk about ghosts that I
have spared her feelings and never put the legend to the test. I used to
think I'd go some stormy night alone to the chapel, but when the stormy
nights come I am too sleepy or too indolent or afraid of disturbing
mother or something else turns up, and I never have done it."

The young heir of the d'Ochtes led his cousin to a higher point of the
hill overlooking the chateau where he could show her the whole estate of
_Roche Craie_. It was a beautiful sight. The gentle hills sloped to the
Seine with here and there a sharp cleft showing a cliff of chalk,
standing out very white against the green of the spring grass.

Some of the peasants had their homes in the cliffs, and Philippe assured
Molly that they were very comfortable, dry houses. It was a vast estate
in the highest state of cultivation. The village was clean and
prosperous, consisting of about twenty houses besides the ones dug in
the cliffs, two shops and an inn. Across the river was a forest of great
trees that made the beeches at Chatsworth seem saplings.

"Is the land across the river yours, too?" she asked.

"Yes, indeed, that is the best part of _Roche Craie_. My studies at
Nancy have taught me what to do to keep our forest, and I am at work now
preserving those beautiful old trees. You do like it here, don't you,
Cousin Molly? It does not seem small and mean to you after Chatsworth,
does it?"

"Small and mean! It is beautiful, the most beautiful place I ever saw!
You must not get an