CHAPTER VI

Maurice and Marie-Anne had loved each other for many years.

As children, they had played together in the magnificent grounds
surrounding the Chateau de Sairmeuse, and in the park at Escorval.

Together they chased the brilliant butterflies, searched for pebbles
on the banks of the river, or rolled in the hay while their mothers
sauntered through the meadows bordering the Oiselle.

For their mothers were friends.

Mme. Lacheneur had been reared like other poor peasant girls; that is
to say, on the day of her marriage it was only with great difficulty she
succeeded in inscribing her name upon the register.

But from the example of her husband she had learned that prosperity, as
well as _noblesse_, entails certain obligations upon one, and with rare
courage, crowned with still rarer success, she had undertaken to acquire
an education in keeping with her fortune and her new rank.

And the baroness had made no effort to resist the sympathy that
attracted her to this meritorious young woman, in whom she had discerned
a really superior mind and a truly refined nature.

When Mme. Lacheneur died, Mme. d'Escorval mourned for her as she would
have mourned for a favorite sister.