nied the
donation offered a bait. Their pride and dignity declined it; but these
bright bits of gold cost them many a sharp pang. You must know that
Josephine and Rose had worn out their mourning by this time; and were
obliged to have recourse to gayer materials that lay in their great
wardrobes, and were older, but less worn. A few of these gold pieces
would have enabled the poor girls to be neat, and yet to mourn their
father openly. And it went through and through those tender, simple
hearts, to think that they must be disunited, even in so small a thing
as dress; that while their mother remained in her weeds, they must seem
no longer to share her woe.

The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet could not
bow her dignity to say, "Take five of these bits of gold, and let us
all look what we are--one." Yet in this, as in everything else, they
supported each other. They resisted, they struggled, and with a wrench
they conquered day by day. At last, by general consent, Josephine locked
up the tempter, and they looked at it no more. But the little bit of
paper met a kinder fate. Rose made a little frame for it, and it was
kept in a drawer, in the salon: and often looked at and blessed. Just
when they despaired of human friendship, this paper with the sacred
word "friend" written on it, had fallen all in a moment on their aching
hearts.

They could not tell whence it came, this blessed word.

But men dispute whence comes the dew?

Then let us go with the poets, who say it comes from heaven.

And even so that sweet word, friend, dropped like the dew from heaven on
these afflicted ones.

So they locked the potent gold away from themselves, and took the kind
slip of paper to their hearts.

The others left off guessing: Aubertin had it all his own way: he upheld
Perrin as their silent benefactor, and bade them all observe that the
worthy notary had never visited the chateau openly since the day the
purse was left there. "Guilty conscience," said Aubertin dryly.

One day in his walks he met a gaunt figure ambling on a fat pony: he
stopped him, and, holding up his finger, said abruptly, "We have found
you out, Maitre Perrin."

The notary changed color.

"Oh, never be ashamed," said Aubertin; "a good action done slyly is none
the less a good action."

The notary wore a puzzled air.

Aubertin admired his histrionic powers in calling up this look.

"Come, come, don't overdo it," said he. "Well, we