myself what a comfortable spleen I should experience when I might
courtesy to him and say, 'What would you be pleased to take, sir?' But
I think he is minded to rob me of that pleasure, for it is certain he
must have ridden this way before now."

"I have a mind to burn a candle to the Virgin," said Victorine, slowly,
"that he may come here. I would like for once to set my eyes on his
face."

An unwonted earnestness in Victorine's tone and a still more unwonted
seriousness in her face arrested Jeanne's attention.

"What is it to thee to see him or not to see him, eh? What is it thou
hast in thy silly head. If thou thinkest thou couldst win him over to
take us back to live in his house again,--which is my own house, to be
sure, if I had my rights,--thy wits are wool-gathering, I can tell thee
that," cried Jeanne. "He has the pride of ten thousand devils in him.
There was that in his face when I drove away from the door,--and he
standing with his head uncovered too,--which I tell thee if I had been a
man I could have killed him for. He take us back! He! he!" And Jeanne
laughed a bitter laugh at the bare idea of the thing.

"I had not thought of any such thing, Aunt Jeanne," replied Victorine,
still speaking slowly, and still with a dreamy expression on her face,
as she leaned out of the window and began idly plucking the blossoms
from a bough of the big pear-tree, which was now all white with flowers
and buzzing with bees. "Dost thou not think the bees steal a little
sweet that ought to go into the fruit?" continued the artful girl, who
did not choose that her aunt should question her any further as to the
reason of her desire to see Willan Blaycke. "I remember that once Father