When the door of the breakfast room opened and shut as the servants went
in, she could hear the two laughing and talking. They seemed to be
enjoying themselves very much. Once she heard an order given for the mail
phaeton. They were evidently going out as soon as the meal was over.

At last the door opened and they were coming out. Elizabeth ran down the
stairs and stood in a small reception room. Her heart began to beat
faster than ever.

"The blessed martyrs were not afraid," she whispered to herself.

"Uncle Bertrand!" she said, as he approached, and she scarcely knew her
own faint voice. "Uncle Bertrand--"

He turned, and seeing her, started, and exclaimed, rather
impatiently--evidently he was at once amazed and displeased to see her.
He was in a hurry to get out, and the sight of her odd little figure,
standing in its straight black robe between the _portières_, the slender
hands clasped on the breast, the small pale face and great dark eyes
uplifted, was certainly a surprise to him.

"Elizabeth!" he said, "what do you wish? Why do you come downstairs? And
that impossible dress! Why do you wear it again? It is not suitable."

"Uncle Bertrand," said the child, clasping her hands still more tightly,
her eyes growing larger in her excitement and terror under his
displeasure, "it is that I want money--a great deal. I beg your pardon if
I derange you. It is for the poor. Moreover, the _curé_ has written the
people of the village are ill--the vineyards did not yield well. They