surrounding
region. As the pavilion had threatened ruin, Mathieu had repaired
and enlarged it with the idea of retiring thither with Marianne, and
Charlotte and her children, as soon as he should cede the farm to his
son Gervais, that being his intention. He was, indeed, pleased with
the idea of living in retirement like a patriarch, like a king who
had willingly abdicated, but whose wise counsel was still sought and
accepted. In place of the former wild garden a large lawn now stretched
before the pavilion, surrounded by some beautiful trees, elms and
hornbeams. These Mathieu had planted, and he had watched them grow; thus
they seemed to him to be almost part of his flesh. But his real favorite
was an oak tree, nearly twenty years of age and already sturdy, which
stood in the centre of the lawn, where he had planted it with Marianne,
who had held the slender sapling in position while he plied his spade on
the day when they had founded their domain of Chantebled. And near this
oak, which thus belonged to their robust family, there was a basin of
living water, fed by the captured springs of the plateau--water whose
crystalline song made the spot one of continual joy.

It was here then that a council was held on the day before the wedding.
Mathieu and Marianne repaired thither to see what preparations would
be necessary, and they found Charlotte with a sketch-book on her knees,
rapidly finishing an impression of the oak tree.

"What is that--a surprise?" they asked.

She smiled with some confusion. "Yes, yes, a surprise; you will see."

Then she confessed that for a fortnight past she had been designing in
water colors a series of menu cards for the wedding feast. And, prettily
and lovingly enough, her idea had been to depict children's games
and children's heads; indeed, all the members of the family in their
childish days. She had taken their likenesses from old photographs,
and her sketch of the oak tree was to serve as a background for the
portraits of the two youngest scions of the house--little Benjamin and
little Guillaume.

Mathieu and Marianne were delighted with that fleet procession of little
faces all white and pink which they perfectly recognized as they saw
them pass before their eyes. There were the twins nestling in their
cradle, locked in one another's arms; there was Rose, the dear lost
one, in her little shift; there were Ambroise and Gervais, bare,
and wrestling on a patch of grass; there were Gre