as I guessed, the wife of the elder
and the mother of the younger of my companions; and the glance she
threw at these when she saw them told as plainly as the language of a
wife's and mother's eyes can tell what a large and willing share she
claimed of all their trials. As she appeared her husband hastily
turned his face from her to dry his tears and to assume with a loving,
simple hypocrisy a cheerful countenance, with which he fondly hoped to
hide the trouble of his heart. "Madeleine," he said in a voice which,
poor man! he meant to be gay--"Madeleine, I bring you a stranger very
cold, very wet, and, I've no doubt, very hungry. You must try to--"
but here he stopped short: his wife's eyes were fixed upon him with a
look of quiet reproach.

"Francois," she asked in a low, slightly tremulous tone, "you have
some news to give me?" and at the same time she glanced from him to
her son. A moment's silence followed. Henri and his father exchanged a
timid look, but before either had spoken the wife had thrown herself
into her husband's arms: what need had she of an answer--she, who for
years had been used to read every thought, every wish, every feeling
of those she loved, long ere they gave expression to them?

I shall never forget that scene--father, mother and son clasped in
each other's embrace, and giving free course to their grief in tears
of which each tried to stop the flow from the other's eyes, forgetful
of the bitter stream which ran from his own; each striving to find in
his heart a word of comfort for the other, and each seeking in vain a
like word for himself.

"We must hope," faltered the old man.

"Yes, mother," echoed Henri, "we must hope."

"Ay, my poor boy," said Madeleine, "hope, hope!--in God!" and she
pointed upward.

This was the story of the poor family: Francois Derblay was a peasant,
born and brought up in Picardy, and the son of poor parents, who, at
dying, had left him little to add to what Nature had given him--a pair
of strong arms and a sound, honest mind. With this fortune Francois
had begun early to till the fields, and by the age of twenty-five had
laid by a little store sufficient to marry on. His choice had been
happy, and Madeleine, although poor and untaught, had been a good and
loving wife to him. By her thrift and his own hard work his little
store quickly increased, and within a few years Derblay reached the
goal to which all poor Frenchmen so ardently aspire--the position of a