half an hour--went to her door, and took the liberty of listening to
hear if she was up and moving about her room. There was no sound. Old
Alice returned, looking quite agitated. "Would Mademoiselle Elizabeth
mind entering to see if all was well? Mademoiselle her aunt might be in
the chapel."

Elizabeth went. Her aunt was not in her room. Then she must be in the
chapel. The child entered the sacred little place. The morning sun was
streaming in through the stained-glass windows above the altar--a broad
ray of mingled brilliant colors slanted to the stone floor and warmly
touched a dark figure lying there. It was Aunt Clotilde, who had sunk
forward while kneeling at prayer and had died in the night.

That was what the doctors said when they were sent for. She had been dead
some hours--she had died of disease of the heart, and apparently without
any pain or knowledge of the change coming to her. Her face was serene
and beautiful, and the rigid look had melted away. Someone said she
looked like little Mademoiselle Elizabeth; and her old servant Alice wept
very much, and said, "Yes--yes--it was so when she was young, before her
unhappiness came. She had the same beautiful little face, but she was
more gay, more of the world. Yes, they were much alike then."

Less than two months from that time Elizabeth was living in the home of
her Uncle Bertrand, in New York. He had come to Normandy for her himself,
and taken her back with him across the Atlantic. She was richer than ever
now, as a great deal of her Aunt Clotilde's money had been left to her,
and Uncle Bertrand was her guardian. He was a handsome, elegant, clever
man, who, having lived long in America and being fond of American life,
did not appear very much like a Frenchman--at least he did not appear so
to Elizabeth, who had only seen the _curé_ and the doctor of the village.