goire and Nicolas
birdnesting; there were Claire and the three other girls, Louise,
Madeleine, and Marguerite, romping about the farm, quarrelling with the
fowls, springing upon the horses' backs. But what particularly touched
Marianne was the sketch of her last-born, little Benjamin, now nine
months old, whom Charlotte had depicted reclining under the oak tree in
the same little carriage as her own son Guillaume, who was virtually of
the same age, having been born but eight days later.

"The uncle and the nephew," said Mathieu jestingly. "All the same, the
uncle is the elder by a week."

As Marianne stood there smiling, soft tears came into her eyes, and the
sketch shook in her happy hands.

"The dears!" said she; "my son and grandson. With those dear little ones
I am once again a mother and a grandmother. Ah, yes! those two are the
supreme consolation; they have helped to heal the wound; it is they who
have brought us back hope and courage."

This was true. How overwhelming had been the mourning and sadness of the
early days when Charlotte, fleeing the factory, had sought refuge at the
farm! The tragedy by which Blaise had been carried off had nearly killed
her. Her first solace was to see that her daughter Berthe, who had been
rather sickly in Paris, regained bright rosy cheeks amid the open air
of Chantebled. Moreover, she had settled her life: she would spend her
remaining years, in that hospitable house, devoting herself to her
two children, and happy in having so affectionate a grandmother and
grandfather to help and sustain her. She had always shown herself to be
somewhat apart from life, possessed of a dreamy nature, only asking to
love and to be loved in return.

So by degrees she settled down once more, installed beside her
grandparents in the old pavilion, which Mathieu fitted up for the three
of them. And wishing to occupy herself, irrespective of her income from
the factory, she even set to work again and painted miniatures, which
a dealer in Paris readily purchased. But her grief was mostly healed by
her little Guillaume, that child bequeathed to her by her dead husband,
in whom he resuscitated. And it was much the same with Marianne since
the birth of Benjamin. A new son had replaced the one she had lost, and
helped to fill the void in her heart. The two women, the two mothers,
found infinite solace in nursing those babes. For them they forgot
themselves; they reared them together, watching them gro