e and warm. Good-night, gentlemen, sleep well!"

She turned away, and went to rejoin the paralytic sufferer, who, as she
approached, manifested his joy by a succession of inarticulate sounds.

The room to which Guitiote conducted Julien was on the first floor, and
had a cheerful, hospitable appearance. The walls were whitewashed; the
chairs, table, and bed were of polished oak; a good fire of logs crackled
in the fireplace, and between the opening of the white window-curtains
could be seen a slender silver crescent of moon gliding among the
flitting clouds. The young man went at once to his bed; but
notwithstanding the fatigues of the day, sleep did not come to him.
Through the partition he could hear the clear, sonorous voice of Reine
singing her father to sleep with one of the popular ballads of the
country, and while turning and twisting in the homespun linen sheets,
scented with orrisroot, he could not help thinking of this young girl, so
original in her ways, whose grace, energy, and frankness fascinated and
shocked him at the same time. At last he dozed off; and when the morning
stir awoke him, the sun was up and struggling through the foggy
atmosphere.

The sky had cleared during the night; there had been a frost, and the
meadows were powdered white. The leaves, just nipped with the frost, were
dropping softly to the ground, and formed little green heaps at the base
of the trees. Julien dressed himself hurriedly, and descended to the
courtyard, where the first thing he saw was the cabriolet, which had been
brought in the early morning and which one of the farm-boys was in the
act of sousing with water in the hope of freeing the hood and wheels from
the thick mud which covered them. When he entered the diningroom,
brightened by the rosy rays of the morning sun, he found Reine Vincart
there before him. She was dressed in a yellow striped woolen skirt, and a
jacket of white flannel carelessly belted at the waist. Her dark chestnut
hair, parted down the middle and twisted into a loose knot behind, lay in
ripples round her smooth, open forehead.

"Good-morning, Monsieur de Buxieres," said she, in her cordial tone, "did
you sleep well? Yes? I am glad. You find me busy attending to household
matters. My father is still in bed, and I am taking advantage of the fact
to arrange his little corner. The doctor said he must not be put near the
fire, so I have made a place for him here; he enjoys it immensely, and I
arranged