serious of temper, though so
gentle, and the arch, gay humour of his young wife was like perpetual
sunlight in the house. Margot, too, was so docile, so eager, so bright,
and so imbued with devotional reverence for her husband and his home,
that Reine Allix day by day blessed the fate that had brought to her
this fatherless and penniless child. Bernadou himself spoke little;
words were not in his way; but his blue, frank eyes shone with an
unclouded radiance that never changed, and his voice, when he did speak,
had a mellow softness in it that made his slightest speech to the two
women with him tender as a caress.

"Thou art a happy woman, my sister," said the priest, who was well-nigh
as old as herself.

Reine Allix bowed her head and made the sign of the cross. "I am, praise
be to God!"

And being happy, she went to the hovel of poor Madelon Dreux, the
cobbler's widow, and nursed her and her children through a malignant
fever, sitting early and late, and leaving her own peaceful hearth for
the desolate hut with the delirious ravings and heartrending moans of
the fever-stricken. "How ought one to dare to be happy if one is not
of use?" she would say to those who sought to dissuade her from running
such peril.

Madelon Dreux and her family recovered, owing to her their lives; and
she was happier than before, thinking of them when she sat on the settle
before the wood fire roasting chestnuts and spinning flax on the wheel,
and ever and again watching the flame reflected on the fair head of
Bernadou or in the dark, smiling eyes of Margot.

Another spring passed and another year went by, and the little home
under the sycamores was still no less honest in its labours or bright
in its rest. It was one among a million of such homes in France, where a
sunny temper made mirth with a meal of herbs, and filial love touched to
poetry the prose of daily household tasks.

A child was born to Margot in the springtime with the violets and
daisies, and Reine Allix was proud of the fourth generation, and, as she
caressed the boy's healthy, fair limbs, thought that God was indeed good
to her, and that her race would live long in the place of her birth.
The child resembled Bernadou, and had his clear, candid eyes. It soon
learned to know the voice of "_gran'mere_," and would turn from its
young mother's bosom to stretch its arms to Reine Allix. It grew fair
and strong, and all the ensuing winter passed its hours curled like
a dorm