e market to-morrow," replied she earnestly.

The Bourgeois glanced sharply at the dame, who continued to ply
her needles. Her eyes were half closed in a semi-trance, their lids
trembling with nervous excitement. One of her moods, rare of late, was
upon her, and she continued:

"Oh, my dear master! you will never go to France; but Pierre shall
inherit the honors of the house of Philibert!"

The Bourgeois looked up contentedly. He respected, without putting
entire faith in Dame Rochelle's inspirations. "I shall be resigned,"
he said, "not to see France again, if the King's Majesty makes it a
condition that he restore to Pierre the dignity, while I give him back
the domain of his fathers."

Dame Rochelle clasped her hands hard together and sighed. She spake not,
but her lips moved in prayer as if deprecating some danger, or combating
some presentiment of evil.

The Bourgeois watched her narrowly. Her moods of devout contemplation
sometimes perplexed his clear worldly wisdom. He could scarcely believe
that her intuitions were other than the natural result of a wonderfully
sensitive and apprehensive nature; still, in his experience he had found
that her fancies, if not supernatural, were not unworthy of regard
as the sublimation of reason by intellectual processes of which the
possessor was unconscious.

"You again see trouble in store for me, dame," said he smiling; "but
a merchant of New France setting at defiance the decrees of the Royal
Intendant, an exile seeking from the King the restoration of the
lordship of Philibert, may well have trouble on his hands."

"Yes, master, but as yet I only see trouble like a misty cloud which as
yet has neither form nor color of its own, but only reflects red rays as
of a setting sun. No voice from its midst tells me its meaning; I thank
God for that. I like not to anticipate evil that may not be averted!"

"Whom does it touch, Pierre or Amelie, me, or all of us?" asked the
Bourgeois.

"All of us, master? How could any misfortune do other than concern us
all? What it means, I know not. It is now like the wheel seen by the
Prophet, full of eyes within and without, like God's providence looking
for his elect."

"And finding them?"

"Not yet, master, but ere long,--finding all ere long," replied she in a
dreamy manner. "But go not to the market to-morrow."

"These are strange fancies of yours, Dame Rochelle. Why caution me
against the market to-morrow? It is the day of St.