were a secret, by the lay-brother who acted as doorkeeper. He
was wandering uncertainly from door to door along the walls of
the old silent buildings when a little boy noticed his plight
and accosted him:

"Do you want to see the Director? He is in his study with mamma.
Go and wait in the parlour."

This was a large hall with bare walls, a noble enough apartment
in its unadorned simplicity, in spite of the mean horsehair chairs
that stood round it. Above the fire-place, instead of a mirror,
was a _Mater dolorosa_ that caught the eye by its dazzling
whiteness. Big marble tears stood arrested in mid-career down
the cheeks, while the features expressed the pious absorption
of the Divine Mother's grief. Jean Servien read the inscription
cut in red letters on the pedestal, which ran thus:

PRESENTED TO THE REVEREND ABBE BORDIER,
IN MEMORY OF
PHILIPPE-GUY DE THIERERCHE,
WHO DIED AT PAU,
NOVEMBER 11, 1867, IN THE SEVENTEENTH
YEAR OF HIS AGE,
BY THE COUNTESS VALENTINE DE THIERERCHE,
NÉE DE BRUILLE DE SAINT-AMAND.
_LAUDATE PUERI DOMINUM_

Then he forgot his anxieties, forgot he was there to beg for
employment, shook off the instinctive dread that had seized him
on the threshold of the great silent house. He forgot his fears