pass unseen before her eyes, and she might be seen to shudder when the
children pressed her to say how many days it would be before they saw
their father.

An observer with a mind at ease might have been much entertained with
the airs and graces that the two maids, Rosette and Babette, lavished
upon Laurence, their only squire; for Maitre Hebert was far too distant
and elderly a person for their little coquetries. Rosette dealt in
little terrors, and, if he was at hand, durst not step across a plank
without his hand, was sure she heard wolves howling in the woods, and
that every peasant was 'ce barbare;' while Babette, who in conjunction
with Maitre Hebert acted cook in case of need, plied him with dainty
morsels, which he was only too apt to bestow on the beggars, or the
lean and hungry lad who attended on the horses. Victorine, on the
other hand, by far the prettiest and most sprightly of the three,
affected the most supreme indifference to him and his attentions, and
hardly deigned to give him a civil word, or to accept the cornflowers
and late roses he brought her from time to time. 'Mere weeds,' she
said. And the grapes and Queen Claude plums he brought her were always
sour. Yet a something deep blue might often be seen peeping above her
trim little apron.

Not that Lanty had much time to disport himself in this fashion, for
the Abbe was his care, and was perfectly happy with a rod of his
arranging, with which to fish over the side. Little Ulysse was of
course fired with the same emulation, and dangled his line for an hour
together. Estelle would have liked to do the same, but her mother and
Mademoiselle Julienne considered the sport not convenable for a
demoiselle. Arthur was once or twice induced to try the Abbe's rod,
but he found it as mere a toy as that of the boy; and the mere action