nette's husband. We went down by the road I had so joyously ascended
the day I first returned to her. We crossed the valley of the Indre to
the little cemetery of Sache--a poor village graveyard, placed behind
the church on the slope of the hill, where with true humility she had
asked to be buried beneath a simple cross of black wood, "like a poor
country-woman," she said. When I saw, from the centre of the valley,
the village church and the place of the graveyard a convulsive shudder
seized me. Alas! we have all our Golgothas, where we leave the first
thirty-three years of our lives, with the lance-wound in our side, the
crown of thorns and not of roses on our brow--that hill-slope was to me
the mount of expiation.

We were followed by an immense crowd, seeking to express the grief of
the valley where she had silently buried so many noble actions. Manette,
her faithful woman, told me that when her savings did not suffice to
help the poor she economized upon her dress. There were babes to be
provided for, naked children to be clothed, mothers succored in their
need, sacks of flour brought to the millers in winter for helpless
old men, a cow sent to some poor home,--deeds of a Christian woman,
a mother, and the lady of the manor. Besides these things, there were
dowries paid to enable loving hearts to marry; substitutes bought for
youths to whom the draft had brought despair, tender offerings of the
loving woman who had said: "The happiness of others is the consolation
of those who cannot themselves be happy." Such things, related at the
"veillees," made the crowd immense. I walked with Jacques and the two
abbes behind the coffin. According to custom neither the count nor
Madeleine were present; they remained alone at Clochegourde. But Manette
insisted in coming with us. "Poor madame! poor madame! she is happy
now," I heard her saying to herself amid her sobs.

As the procession left the road to the mills I heard a simultaneous moan
and a sound of weeping as though the valley were lamenting for its soul.
The church was filled with people. After the service was over we went to
the graveyard where she wished to be buried near the cross. When I heard
the pebbles and the gravel falling upon the coffin my courage gave way;
I staggered and asked the two Martineaus to steady me. They took me,
half-dead, to the chateau of Sache, where the owners very kindly invited
me to stay, and I accepted. I will own to you that I dreaded a r