so they silently followed their new host and his brother. They
went down a passage and into a room, half kitchen, half parlour, snugly
and even comfortably furnished.

[Illustration: "A MAN AND A WOMAN SAT OVER THE FIRE."]

Heavy wooden shutters dulled the noise of the boisterous gale outside. A
thick red curtain hung over the door, and a cheery log fire burnt in the
stove. A man and woman sat over it; the man, a tall, repulsive-looking
creature, with unkempt hair and matted beard, his age apparently about
fifty. The woman looked seventy or more. She too had once been tall, but
now old age gave her a withered, witch-like appearance, in spite of her
great height. She was dressed in limp, faded garments, with a tattered
shawl crossed over her chest, and had a scared, miserable look in her
bleared old eyes. There were a few words of explanation from the man who
had come home, and then, in gruff but not unkindly tones, he bade
Babette be seated, and told his mother to get some supper speedily. She
spread a coarse cloth on the wooden table, and when all was ready,
lifted a large black saucepan from the stove and turned out a smoking,
savoury-looking stew. The youngest son produced a bottle containing the
thin acid wine of the country, and another of spirits. As he set them on
the table, Babette noticed that across one of his hands, which were much
smaller and whiter than those of his brothers, there ran a dull red scar
that looked as if he had had a bad cut there. Then they all sat down,
excepting the old mother, who busied herself in waiting on them.

"It's the last good meal you'll get for some time, I'm thinking," she
croaked, as she watched them devouring their supper, "unless you turn to
and find more work than you've done lately. The landlord called for his
rent again to-day and swore he would wait no longer, but turn us out if
we did not pay in three days' time."

"Curse him!" muttered the man who had brought the strangers in, half
under his breath; then aloud he added, "Shut up, good mother: remember,
we have visitors; and one a man of property, who will hardly sympathize
with our poverty."

Babette looked up as he spoke, and intercepted a glance so strange and
savage that passed between the brothers and then rested on her friend
the pedlar, that involuntarily she shuddered and turned pale.

The old man, however, did not appear to notice anything unsatisfactory
in the appearance or manners of his hosts. He had