on a tour to-morrow. Ah! not only do the dead leave us, but it is
astonishing what a number of the living go off and disappear! Life is
very sad, is it not, dear madame?"

As she spoke a little quiver passed over her face; the dread of the
coming rupture, which she had felt approaching for several months
past, amid all the skilful preparations of Santerre, who had been long
maturing some secret plan, which she did not as yet divine. However, she
made a devout ecstatic gesture, and added: "Well, we are in the hands of
God."

Marianne, who was still smiling at the ever-motionless girls in the
closed brougham, changed the subject. "How tall they have grown, how
pretty they have become! Your Andree looks adorable. How old is your
Lucie now? She will soon be of an age to marry."

"Oh! don't let her hear you," retorted Valentine; "you would make her
burst into tears! She is seventeen, but for sense she isn't twelve.
Would you believe it, she began sobbing this morning and refusing to go
to the wedding, under the pretence that it would make her ill? She is
always talking of convents; we shall have to come to a decision about
her. Andree, though she is only thirteen, is already much more womanly.
But she is a little stupid, just like a sheep. Her gentleness quite
upsets me at times; it jars on my nerves."

Then Valentine, on the point of getting into her carriage, turned to
shake hands with Marianne, and thought of inquiring after her health.
"Really," said she, "I lose my head at times. I was quite forgetting.
And the baby you're expecting will be your eleventh child, will it now?
How terrible! Still it succeeds with you. And, ah! those poor people
whom you are going to see, their house will be quite empty now."

When the brougham had rolled away it occurred to Mathieu and Marianne
that before seeing the Beauchenes it might be advisable for them to call
at the little pavilion, where their son or their daughter-in-law might
be able to give them some useful information. But neither Blaise nor
Charlotte was there. They found only a servant who was watching over
the little girl, Berthe. This servant declared that she had not seen
Monsieur Blaise since the previous day, for he had remained at the
Beauchenes' near the body. And as for Madame, she also had gone there
early that morning, and had left instructions that Berthe was to be
brought to her at noon, in order that she might not have to come back
to give her the breast. Th