"But - but "-the woman with the withered-leaf face is plainly timid, for she bends lower, and seems to wince under her sister's imperious blue eyes "Nicole does not look happy lately, and Jules Barrière is weak, too weak to be fit for a husband yet awhile. Augustine, I am afraid he is not good enough for our Nicole."

The curved lips tremble just a little; but Madame Vagnon's head is more erect than ever as she answers:

"If thou didst not shut thyself up so much, Henriette, thou wouldst know such talk is a folly. I tell thee the marriage is decided, and a girl who breaks such an engagement is not well thought of; it is against all rule.”

"Rule! always rule, and what is thought by the world!" But Henriette only murmurs this to herself; she checks any outward expression.

she

Madame Vagnon has paused to reflect, goes on speaking:

"I told thee that Jules Barrière was not fit for a husband when thou hast proposed him to me for Nicole; but my child loved him, and he has money and an état. I gave up my objections then it was decided; certainly thou must not ask me to retract now, when even the wedding-day is fixed."

Henriette sighed. She looked very sad. "Thou wert wise and foreseeing, my sister; and I, in my foolishness, thought only of the separation of the two young hearts. It seemed to me that my Nicole's love must make the man who loved her worthy to be her husband; but I was wrong I fear much that Jules is not fit."

"Thou wilt not let me share the benefit of that reasoning." Henriette spoke with a sly smile.

Madame had been standing beside her sister; she turned abruptly now, and took down a jug of old Rouen ware from a long shelf near the ceiling:

"That is different." She paused to blow the dust off the jug. "Thou art wrong in trying to earn a living all by thyself at Caudebec, because if thou hadst half the caps and colifichets of Caudebec to mend and get up, thou couldst not keep up a good appearance. No, Henriette, I say to thee again what I said when our parents died and my husband bought this Maison Blanche, Stay in it, it is a family inheritance, and thou couldest find work here without the need of slaving as thou dost at Caudebec.''

66

Thou art very good, Augustine, but we shall never understand one another about this." Henriette spoke meekly, but she was decided too. "Still I will tell thee the worst I know of Jules, and then thou canst not blame me after."

Madame's firm mouth quivered, but she stood still listening.

"He is idle, and he leaves his business for days to go with Floris Mercœur to shoot and fish; and Floris is a drunkard."

Madame threw back her head as if to repel the suggestion.

"Bah! bah! bah! Henriette, thou must stay here awhile and get clear of these Caudebec follies. If a white man consorts with a negro, he does not turn black. Thou canst not keep men under a glass case. Leave Jules to Nicole. I did not choose him, as thou knowest; but since all is arranged, I say the marriage must be."

III.

Après ça". Madame had a provokingly calm smile. "It is the pastime of you unmarried women to cultivate sentiment; console thyself, Henriette, there is no sentiment in marriage. Jules and IT is Sunday - Nicole's last Sabbath Nicole like one another; bon, Nicole will at the Maison Blanche. Her marriage is find enough to do when she is mistress fixed for Wednesday, and Madame Vaof the first hotel in Caudebec; she will gnon, though she looks wholly unmoved, have no time for sentiment; her duties is in truth heavy-hearted at the thought will be enough for Nicole. Allons!" of losing her daughter. But she has Madame Vagnon smiled more genially, trained herself and Nicole too in the but a sadness sounded in her voice. "If creed that feeling must always yield to I had time for sentiment, I too might re-duty, and so neither mother nor daughter gret that a de Launay should marry a betrays sorrow at the coming separation. clown for Jules is of the peasantry Nicole is strangely silent; she loves though he has money; but I say to myself, This is folly.' Good blood does not lie, my Henriette, and Nicole will be as true a de Launay at the Hôtel du Quai as she would be here at the Maison Blanche."

Jules, and she is to marry him on Wednesday, and yet all her light-hearted gaiety has fled. Her mother notices it, and then she says, in her calm, wise way:

"It is natural. Nicole feels the responsibility of her new life. Here she

is a simple farmer's daughter; after Wednesday she will be the head of a large household. But my Nicole will do her duty, wherever she is."

The only sign of feeling the mother gives is that, as they come out of church, she presses forward to touch the fingers which Nicole has just dipped in the bénitier, and then crosses herself devoutly.

In the afternoon Madame takes her accustomed nap, and Nicole strays into the garden. She has dressed herself with extra care this morning, and now she smiles rather sadly at her well-fitting black silk gown the gown that Jules says becomes her so well. She looks at her watch. It is long past the time at which she expects her lover.

-

"He has met with Floris and they have gone to the fête, or he would have been here by now."

Nicole sighs, and then she tries hard to give up her own will-her own strong feeling, that because she dislikes Floris and shrinks from him he must be an unsafe companion.

Henriette will return with thee and stay till the marriage is ended. This pleases thee, my child?"

There is a tender light in Madame's eyes as she speaks, and Nicole longs to clasp her arms round her mother's neck; but Madame Vagnon would not have suffered her feelings to appear if she had not put a safe distance between herself and any demonstration of affection. "Thank you, my mother. La tante Henriette will be glad. The heat has made her too weak to walk from Caudebec and back in a day."

They walked on silently for nearly a mile, until they came to a narrow opening leading down to the river. Just within the opening was a small calvary, and, shaded by a group of trees, behind this appeared the open grate of a roadside chapel. Madame Vagnon and Nicole turned in here and knelt down on the long low wooden bench in front of the grating. On each side of the chapel altar and on the walls were votive offerings, chiefly of sailors and their wives and chil"But Jules is to guide me and be my dren; thank-offerings - many of them head. I must not doubt his wisdom." dating from far-off days - for preservaAnd Nicole forces herself to dismiss her tion from the much-dreaded mascaret of doubts and fears as fancies, and to be- the Seine- the flot, as the peasantry call lieve that when she is Jules' wife she will the terrible spring and autumn phenombe able to trust him entirely. She loves enon; offerings too of those who went her gay, sweet-natured, handsome lover from Villequier or Caudebec to Le Havre so very dearly that it is easy to think to seek their fortune on the high seas. only of him and the bliss of her future Everywhere the eye rested on some proof life with him; for Nicole is not like her of trust and love. mother in feeling. She does not look forward to being the mistress of the Hôtel du Quai; she only thinks that after Wednesday she shall never be parted from Jules.

She wanders idly among the balsam plots, gay with heavy flowers, and the tall hollyhocks, with rose and strawcolour blossoms, keeping guard like stately sentinels beneath the broad open windows of the dark rooms within.

As she passes beneath the kitchen window she hears her name called. She looks up; Madame Vagnon stands looking at her, her erect figure and defined features so relieved by the dark void behind, and so framed in by the vine and Virginia creeper that meet over the window, that the effect is almost metallic in its crispness.

"Nicole, I asked Henriette to be with us to-day, and she has refused; but I know she longs sorely after thee, and she has only refused because she feared to be de trop. I will go with thee half way to Caudebec, and thou shalt go on, and

They rose up from prayer and went back to the road.

"I leave thee here, then," said Madame Vagnon. "Thou wilt certainly bring

Henriette?"

Nicole nodded and went on to Caudebec at a much quicker pace than she had kept with her mother. When at last she reached the Quai, with its double avenue, she paused beneath the lofty elm trees; she felt a strange unwillingness to be seen alone in Caudebec on the last Sunday before her marriage day.

"But I ought not to think of myself; I have only happiness before me; and how lonely my mother and la tante will be! Ah! if they would but live together always!"

Nicole sighed; she knew that her wish was impracticable. Henriette was too independent and Madame Vagnon was too imperious for such an arrangement. Nicole went on quickly along the Quai; there were a few idlers walking up and down, but no one heeded the girl as she passed on to the room which her

aunt rented behind the baker's shop in
front of the river. The shop front had
rows of long loaves, kept in place by
stout wires, and beneath them, on a shelf
raised from the ground, were scarlet and
white geraniums. A girl was watering
these out of a blue-and-grey pitcher.
"Bon jour, Francine." Nicole looked
shy under the girl's questioning glance.
"Is my Aunt Henriette indoors?
"But no, mam'selle. Henriette has
gone for a walk-a too long walk this
afternoon; she will be tired to death
when she returns, but she would go.
She has gone to the chapelle of St.-Sa-
turnin."

"St.-Saturnin! But it is a folly. If I can make sure by which road she will return I will go and meet her."

Francine shrugged her shoulders. "For that there is no saying. The path beside the river is longest, but then it is the least steep. If I were in the place of mam'selle, I should wait here."

In the uncertainty-for she might miss her aunt by taking the wrong road -Nicole went into the little room and waited. She had often been in the room before, but it seemed to-day to be invested with a new interest. She looked round the white panelled walls and thought how tired her aunt must grow of their sameness.

"Francine," she called; but Francine had been nodding and smiling at Alexis Lefort, the good-looking confiseur of Caudebec, and her heart and eyes and ears also were now engrossed by him as he disappeared under the avenue..

Francine had put her hand up to shade her staring blue eyes from the glare of the sun, setting now behind Villequier; she stood blocking up the entrance, so that Nicole had to lay her hand on the girl's broad shoulder before she could attract her notice. Francine started and her red face grew redder; she was vexed that Nicole should surprise her.

"Monsieur Jules is gone with Floris Mercœur to La Mailleraye," she said in a teasing voice; but Nicole passed on, though the girl's words stung her.

"If my aunt should return," she said, "you will say I went along the lower road to St.-Wandrille to meet her. I shall come back."

IV.

MORE than an hour went by. Francine sallied forth in her best Sunday cap and her new brown and black striped gown, to pay a visit of ceremony at the Gendarmerie, to a newly wedded pair, a gendarme who had married her cousin a few days before.

"I shall have to visit Nicole next "Every day is alike to her," she mur-poor Nicole! I don't envy her" - this mured, unless it be the change from was said with smiling disdain on her full washing to ironing, or to the mending red lips; for Francine still fancied that she does so neatly; and that clock on Jules Barrière's visits were as much for the mantelshelf ticks on all day and all herself as for the niece of her father's night, and those vases of flowers on each lodger. side it, never change. I wonder she can bear it. Perhaps Aunt Henriette never loved any one, and so her life has always been a monotone. But yet she is so kind to me, she has so much true sympathysurely she has loved."

The sky clouded over, so that evening came on early. It was no longer broad daylight when Nicole came hurrying on to the Quai again. She was flushed and out of breath and she looked round to see if there were any one near to question. Nicole knew that her aunt's pilgrimage Only for an instant. Nicole was as to St.-Saturnin was made for her. St.-eagle-eyed as her mother was, and she Saturnin was the Loretto of Caudebec. She looked round the room again. There was literally nothing to arrest the eye with any feeling of pleasure or curiosity.

She had never before so wearied of the colourless monotony of her aunt's room. Every moment she grew duller and more dispirited, and yet, looking back after a few hours, those same wearied feelings seemed bliss compared to the sharp revelation that was even now waiting for her.

Nicole waited an hour and then the weary restlessness mastered her will. She went to the door and opened it.

saw at once that there was no one who could give her the tidings she sought.

She went into the baker's shop. The key of her aunt's room was still hanging on the peg on which she had placed it.

"What can have happened?" Nicole asked herself. She had gone along the road leading to St.-Wandrille, until she felt sure that her aunt must be on her return from St.-Saturnin, a little chapel on the wooded heights behind the ruined monastery; and then she had decided that Henriette had taken the upper road, and was perhaps even now waiting for her in the little parlour.