am very glad to have seen you, and you must not be long in coming
back."

"I give you my promise, and I am obliged to you," said Helene, moved
by these tokens of affection from a woman whom she had imagined rather
flighty. They clasped hands, and each looked into the other's face
with a happy smile. Juliette's avowal of her sudden friendship was
given with a caressing air. "You are too lovely not to be loved!" she
said.

Helene broke into a merry laugh, for her beauty never engaged her
thoughts, and she called Jeanne, whose eyes were busy watching the
pranks of Lucien and Pauline. But Madame Deberle detained the girl for
a moment longer.

"You are good friends henceforth," she said; "you must just say _au
revoir_."

Thereupon the two children blew one another a kiss with their
finger-tips.



CHAPTER III.

Every Tuesday Helene had Monsieur Rambaud and Abbe Jouve to dine with
her. It was they who, during the early days of her bereavement, had
broken in on her solitude, and drawn up their chairs to her table with
friendly freedom; their object being to extricate her, at least once a
week, from the solitude in which she lived. The Tuesday dinners became