Mother Sandeau's anxiously creased face. "I shall presently go back to
my father."

"But, no," exclaimed the miller's wife, "the priest forbids women
below, and there is my son's bridal room upstairs with even a
dressing-table in it. I only held back on account of Angèle La Vigne,"
she added to comprehending neighbors, "but Angèle will attend to the
lady there."

"Angèle will gladly attend to the lady anywhere," spoke out Angèle's
mother, with a resentment of her child's position which ruin could not
crush. "It is the same as if marriage was never talked of between your
son Laurent and her."

"Yes, neighbor, yes," said the miller's wife appeasingly. It was not
her fault that a pig had stopped the marriage. She gave her own
candle to Angèle, with a motherly look. The girl had a pink and golden
prettiness unusual among habitantes. Though all flush was gone out of
her skin under the stress of the hour, she retained the innocent clear
pallor of an infant. Angèle hurried to straighten her disordered dress
before taking the candle, and then led Madame De Mattissart up the
next flight of stairs.

The mill's noise had forced talkers to lift their voices, and it now
half dulled the clamp of habitante shoes below, and the whining of
children longing again for sleep. Huge square wooden hoppers were
shaking down grain, and the two or three square sashes in the
thickness of front wall let in some light from the burning côte.

The building's mighty stone hollows were as cool as the dew-pearled