ts, added year by year. But this was nothing,
when his eye dropped to the two or three figures lying face downward
on the road. He turned himself toward the wailing of a widow and a
mother.

The miller's wife was coming downstairs with a candle, leaving her
children huddled in darkness at the top. Those two dozen or more
people whom she could see lifting dazed looks at her were perhaps
of small account in the province; but they were her friends and
neighbors, and bounded her whole experience of the world, except that
anxiety of having her son Laurent with Montcalm's militia. The dip
light dropped tallow down her petticoat, and even unheeded on one bare
foot.

"My children," exhorted Father Robineau through the wailing of
bereaved women, "have patience." The miller's wife stooped and passed
a hand across a bright head leaning against the stair side.

"Thy mother is safe, Angele?"

"Oh, yes, Madame Sandeau."

"Thy father and the children are safe?"

"Oh, yes," testified the miller, passing towards the fireplace, "La
Vigne and all his are within. I counted them."

"The saints be praised," said his wife.

"Yes, La Vigne got in safely," added the miller, "while that excellent
Jules Martin, our good neighbor, lies scalped out there in the
road."[1]

"He does not know what he is saying, Angele," whispered his wife to
the weeping girl. But the miller snatched the candle from the hearth
as if he meant to fling his indignation with it at La Vigne. His
worthy act, however, was to light the sticks he kept built in the
fireplace for such emergency. A flame arose, gradually revealing
the black earthen floor, the swarm of refugees, and even the
tear-suspending lashes of little children's eyes.

La Vigne appeared, sitting with his hands in his hair. And the
miller's wife saw there was a strange young demoiselle among the women
of the cote, trying to quiet them. She had a calm dark beauty and an
elegance of manner unusual to the provinces, and even Father Robineau
beheld her with surprise.

"Mademoiselle, it is unfortunate that you should be in Petit Cap at
this time," said the priest.

"Father, I count myself fortunate," she answered, "if no worse
calamity has befallen me. My father is safe within here. Can you tell
me anything about my husband, Captain De Mattissart, of the Languedoc
regiment, with General Montcalm?"

"Madame, I never saw your husband."

"He was to meet me with escort at Petit Cap. We landed on a l