ust. I am going to die. I want you to forgive me. I
insist on it. I cannot meet him without your forgiveness. Oh, tell her
to forgive me, Father! Tell her. I implore you! I cannot die without
it."

She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
sheets with her fingers.

Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move. She was
thinking of him whom she had loved so long. What a life of happiness
they might have had together! She saw him again in the dim and distant
past-that past forever lost. Beloved dead! how the thought of them rends
the heart! Oh! that kiss, his only kiss! She had retained the memory of
it in her soul. And, after that, nothing, nothing more throughout her
whole existence!

The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:

"Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!"

Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:

"I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!"

COCO

Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as "the
Manor." No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this
word, "Manor," a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was
undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole
neighborhood.

The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder
and grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
chateau.

Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little
offensive as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and
countless poultry paraded through the tall grass.

Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup
was brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.

The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three
times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.

A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed,