between his knees.

The room which formed the groundwork to the picture composed of these
three personages, was dark and gloomy, as was generally the interior of
the houses of the time; a large wardrobe of black carved wood filled a
great space of one of the walls; presses and chests of the same dark and
heavy workmanship occupied considerable portions of the rest of the
room. The low casement window, left open to admit the air of a bright
May evening, looked out upon the course of the rapid Seine, and gave a
cheering relief to the dark scene. The hazy rays from the setting sun
streamed into the room; and from below rose up the sound of the rushing
waters, and the wheels of the mills, mixed with occasional cries of men
upon the river, and the more distant murmur of the city. The scene was
one of calmness; and yet the calmness of those within that room was not
the calmness of repose and peace.

It was the youth who first spoke.

"Jocelyne," he said in a low tone, approaching his stool nearer to that
of the fair girl, and then continuing to polish his gun-barrel without
looking her in the face--"if you knew how it grieves me to see you thus!
You sit and droop like a bird upon the wintry branch, when I would fain
see you lift your head and chirp, as in days gone by, now that summer
begins to gladden around us."

The maiden thus addressed looked at him with a languid smile, and then
faintly shook her head.

"How would you have me gay, Alayn," she said softly, "when our
grandmother continues thus?"

Alayn made a gesture of doubt, as if he would have said, that solicitude
for her grandmother was not the only cause of Jocelyne's sadness; but he
made no observation to that effect, and, nodding his head towards the
older woman, asked in a low tone--

"How is Dame Perrotte to-day? She did not answer my greeting on my
entrance; and during your reading from that forbidden book of Scripture,
she has uttered not a word."

"You may speak aloud," replied Jocelyne. "When she is in this state, she
does not hear us. She is fully absorbed in her sad thoughts. I have
seldom seen her more troubled than she has been for some few days past.
One would suppose that the return of sunny summer days recalls more
fearfully to her mind that epoch of carnage and destruction at the fete
of St Bartholomew, when the heavens above were so joyous and bright,
whilst below the earth was reeking with blood, and your poor father
perished, Alayn, for