ether I am wife or
widow?"

The young girls looked at each other with piteous eyes.

"This is a terrible time, madame."

"It will, however, pass by, in some fashion."

"But what shall I do for you, madame? Where will you sit? Is there
nothing you require?"

"Yes, I am thirsty. Is there not running water somewhere in this
mill?"

"There is the flume-chamber overhead," said Angele. "I will set the
light here, and go down for a cup, madame."

"Do not. We will go to the flume-chamber together. My hands, my
throat, my eyes burn. Go on, Angele, show me the way."

Laurent's room, therefore, was left in darkness, holding unseen its
best furniture, the family's holiday clothes of huge grained flannel,
and the little yellow spinning-wheel, with its pile of unspun wool
like forgotten snow.

In the fourth story, as below, deep-set swinging windows had small
square panes, well dusted with flour. Nothing broke the monotony of
wall except a row of family snow-shoes. The flume-chamber, inclosed
from floor to ceiling, suggested a grain's sprouting here and there in
its upright humid boards.

As the two girls glanced around this grim space, they were startled by
silence through the building, for the burrs ceased to work. Feet and
voices indeed stirred below, but the sashes no longer rattled. Then a
tramping seemed following them up, and Angele dragged the young lady
behind a stone pillar, and blew out their candle.

"What are you doing?" demanded Madame De Mattissart in displeasure.
"If the door has been forced, should we desert our fathers?"

"It is not that," whispered Angele. And before she could give any
reason for her impulse, the miller's head and light appeared above the
stairs. It was natural enough for Angele La Vigne to avoid Laurent's
father. What puzzled her was to see her own barefooted father creeping
after the miller, his red wool night-cap pulled over dejected brows.

These good men had been unable to meet without quarreling since the
match between Laurent and Angele was broken off, on account of a
pig which Father La Vigne would not add to her dower. Angele had a
blanket, three dishes, six tin plates, and a kneading-trough; at
the pig her father drew the line, and for a pig Laurent's father
contended. But now all the La Vigne pigs were roasted or scattered,
Angele's dower was destroyed, and what had a ruined habitant to say to
the miller of Petit Cap?

Father Robineau had stopped the mill because its n