which I am going to say-in short, if you should get into
any trouble, you will, I hope, remember that you have friends at La
Thuiliere, and that you will come to seek us."

The 'grand chasserot' reddened.

"I shall never take amiss what you may say to me, Reine!" faltered he;
"for I can not doubt your good heart--I have known it since the time when
we played together in the cure's garden, while waiting for the time to
repeat the catechism. But there is no hurry as yet; the heir will not
arrive for several weeks, and by that time, I trust, we shall have had a
chance to turn round."

They had reached the boundary of the forest where the fields of La
Thuiliere begin.

By the last fading light of day they could distinguish the black outline
of the ancient forge, now become a grange, and a light was twinkling in
one of the low windows of the farm.

"Here you are at home," continued Claudet, laying the bundle of nuts on
the flat stone wall which surrounded the farm buildings; "I wish you
good-night."

"Will you not come in and get warm?"

"No; I must go back," replied he.

"Good-night, then, Claudet; au revoir and good courage!"

He gazed at her for a moment in the deepening twilight, then, abruptly
pressing her hands:

"Thank you, Reine," murmured he in a choking voice, "you are a good girl,
and I love you very much!"

He left the young mistress of the farm precipitately, and plunged again
into the woods.

CHAPTER II

THE HEIR TO VIVEY

While these events were happening at Vivey, the person whose name excited
the curiosity and the conversational powers of the villagers--Marie-
Julien de Buxieres--ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue
Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in
the Auberive notary's first letter. The announcement of his inheritance,
dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and,
at first, somewhat sceptical. He remembered, it is true, hearing his
father once speak of a cousin who had remained a bachelor and who owned a
fine piece of property in some corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all
intercourse had long been broken off between the two families, M. de
Buxieres the elder had mentioned the subject only in relation to barely
possible hopes which had very little chance of being realized. Julien had
never placed any reliance on this chimerical inheritance, and he received
almost with indifference the official announc